Herd management program
Herd management programs are, mostly computer-aided , systems for collecting and evaluating data from farm animals . With the help of these programs, short to medium-term measures in the livestock (herd management) can be planned, recorded and documented according to legal requirements. By means of a herd management program, even for large herds, the animals with their individual characteristics can be recorded and treated appropriately.
In particular in the case of high performance levels or difficult economic conditions, optimal management of the livestock is imperative, since otherwise disease problems or uneconomical conditions are recognized late or not at all. For this reason, herd management programs are not only a means of documentation, but also of controlling the livestock.
The control values provided with many herd management programs make it easier to identify deviations in the number of animals under care from average values and to initiate appropriate countermeasures.
Many herd management systems also allow the control of peripheral devices such as
- Milk quantity recording in the milking parlor
- Activity measurement of animals, for example for health or fertility control
- animal-specific recognition systems
- automatic weighing platforms
- automatic selection gates
- automatic feed allocation
In addition to the recording of parameters of animal husbandry, an exchange of data between the actors involved in animal husbandry, such as herd managers, milkers, veterinarians, state control associations and insemination stations, is essential for the productive use of herd management programs. Therefore, interfaces for this use must be available in the programs.