Looking for an alterative to the MN DHIA silver metal tags? Here is an inexpensive alternative with higher retention rate and less risk of infection.

Destron Fearing Small Round Button Tag

Colors Available: Yellow

          American ID number printed on male end (female blank)

          Price: $0.59 each tag

          Set of 25: $14.75

Options Available at Various Costs:

Colors: Pink, Orange, Green, Purple, Blue, Red, or White

 AIN number printed on female end

                                                Management number printed on male end

Free Lunch!  District Meeting Locations/Dates

All meetings except Mankato start at 11:45 with lunch.  All districts will elect delegates to the Minnesota DHIA Annual Meeting. Please call Minnesota DHIA with any questions.  The phone numbers of each location are listed in case you need to be contacted while attending. District Meetings are open to all members, but local board members are encouraged to attend.  Please come prepared to share your opinions.

All members are welcome to attend the meeting of your choice, but you can only vote or serve as a delegate at your district meeting.

Agenda items will include Milk ELISA Johne’s testing, ID systems, Records Processing Services, budgets and financial reports, quarter milking, and open discussion.

Those with “software users” will have Scout and Dairy Comp user meetings at the same location.  Software users will be getting an invitation, or you call the office for more information (800.827.3442 ext 19).

Update on New Reports

SCC Bar Graphs have been provided to herds processing at DRMS starting in mid December and continuing into January.  As we move forward, we will be providing occasional graphs and will also be making graphs available as an option on each sample day.  We will also be looking at colored print to enhance those graphs and highlight data on other reports. 

This single sheet SCC Bar Graphs contains 4 bar graphs. 

1.      Compares the 1st lactation animals raw SCC for the current test to the best 25% of herds at DRMS.  “My

Herd” is in a black column.  

2.      Same as first graph but includes the cows in lactation two and over.

3.      Shows a bar graph for the last 14 tests on this herd.  Current test and the one closest to this date a year

                ago are in black. Herd average SCC is the statistic shown.

4.      Shows the percent of the herd with SCC under 284,000 for each of the last 14 tests, with current and closest

                date from a year ago darkened.

This graph will show up one time only, but may be available as a new option later this year.  There is no charge for the additional reports as we are providing them for your consideration.  We are looking for feedback!

In mid January, you will start receiving the Benchmark Report that compares your herd to others in the the DHIA system.  In the past these reports were a special computer run and were distributed through local association annual meetings.  These are now programmed as a part of routine processing and are available every 6 months to help you track progress.  There will be new options for the comparisons later this year.

Genetic Reports will be coming with sample day reports later in January after the USDA “run” has calculated the genetic data.  There will be a report for youngstock and a separate one for cows.

Both Raw SCC and Linear (Log) SCC are important numbers for dairy’s to monitor. Raw Bulk Tank SCC can have an affect on such things as shelf life and cheese yield, and it impacts the pay price for milk premiums. But the Linear SCC is a better measure of overall herd management for udder health, and that is why this month we will are recognizing producers on the basis of Linear SCC as well as the raw score. 

Use a small number of cows to picture how it works.  10 cows giving 100 pounds of milk each with a SCC of 50,000 (LGSCC = 2) will produce 1,000 pounds of milk with a Bulk Tank average of 50,000 SCC and a herd average LGSCC=2. If one of those cows produces 100 pounds of milk with an SCC of 6,400,000 (LGSCC = 9) the Bulk Tank SCC average will be 685,000. Just looking at the Bulk Tank average could give the impression that there are a lot of infected cows in the herd.  However, the Herd Average LGSCC with the one infected cow is just 2.7, which shows that herd infection levels are quite low.

In this example, as in many herds, the Log or Linear SCC is a better indicator of overall udder health in the herd than a raw SCC tank average.  Log SCC also carries with it a direct correlation to dollar and milk losses due to SCC.  Studies show that for each rise in Lactation Average Linear score above 2, older cows will lose about 400 lb of milk and heifers about 200 lb. For example, an older cow with an average Linear score of 6 for her lactation will lose approximately 1,600 lb of milk.

Note the 2 pages this month for Milk Quality Leaders.  Average SCC for December was 317,000.

December Quality Leaders

(Based on Log SCC, including only Records Processed in December)

December Quality Top 100 based on Raw SCC for herds processed in December

Use That Computer for Dairy Management!

Shuffling through notebooks and papers to find out when Suzy was bred or when Martha is due? Can’t seem to remember if cow 368 had ketosis or a DA last year? Keep track of all of your health events with on farm software from Minnesota DHIA. Both Dairy Comp and Scout provide:

• Traditional Event Tracking: Calvings, Breedings, Dry, Sold, etc
• Generate work lists such as: Cows to Breed, Cows to Dry Off, Cows Due, Vet lists, and Vaccination lists
• Set up Synchronization programs
• Look at current and previous lactation individual cow records with health events, test information, production graphs, and more.
• Information available for consultants upon herd owner requests
• Summaries and graphs can be generated to identify areas where gains can be made in reproduction, production, and disease incidence
• Your program backup provides your DHIA Field Representative with complete and up to date herd information on test day.

Which one is for you?

Scout – Ideal for herds under 250 cows, very affordable for the average scale producer.

Dwane Martin and his sons Dorvin, Neil and Russell milk about 240 cows near Sauk Centre and started using Scout in September of this year. We customized the “Open Cow” report so it can be used with their Presynch/Ovsynch program, and setup the Vet Report the way they wanted. According to Dorvin these reports have been very helpful in managing the dairy. And he really appreciates being able to access everything he needs to know about a cow by clicking on her cowcard in Scout.

Dairy Comp 305 – Ideal for herds 250 cows and greater. Dairy Comp offers more flexibility to customize the program to meet your herd management needs. Some additional features of Dairy Comp are:

• Interfacing with Daily milk meters and other software.
• Daily task scheduler can be set to automatically print reports when needed.
• Comes with many standard Events and Items, and allows creation of Events and Items specific to the herd owners needs.
• More extensive options to monitor herd performance on parameters such as production, SCC, inventory, reproduction and herd health.
• Manage hospital cows – treatment protocols, treatment status, milk and beef withhold dates.
• Setup other reports such as customized Vaccination or Footrim lists.

Ryan Stone dairy farms with his parents Bruce and Arleen on their 400 cow dairy near Henning, and Dairy Comp has been an important management tool for them for 7 years. The Stones record health Events such as DA’s, and Milk Fevers and like the ability to go into cowcards to see exactly what has happened for each animal. They import Service Sire matings from an electronic file into Dairy Comp and have those matings on the “Cows To Breed” report. The Dairy Comp Scheduled tasks automatically prints some of the reports they use, so they can just come into the office, grab the report, and go.

For more information on pricing and deciding which program is for you, call Minnesota DHIA at 1.800.827.3442.