Procedure of Working of Dairy Herd Improvement

Many countries in Europe, and Australia and Canada have adopted varying strategies for the improvement of their dairy herds. However, the program used by the Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA) of the United States is the most comprehensive and complete of all dairy production and record plans.

Approximately, half of the cows in the country on production test are a part of this program. Both registered and grade cows can be enrolled. In this program:

A supervisor or tester employed by the local or state testing association visits the herd one day each month.

The tester identifies all cows in the herd, weighs and takes representative samples of the milk from all animals in the herd for two consecutive milkings (three milkings for herds on three times daily milking), and then combines the milk samples and sends them to a central testing laboratory for analyses of components such as butterfat, protein, and somatic cell count (SCC).

Records are obtained on individual cows based on monthly and cumulative records for milk, fat, and protein; for amount of feed, cost of feed, and income over feed cost; and for breeding dates, calving dates, dry dates; and other factors affecting productivity.

In some testing associations, somatic cell counters or results of the California Mastitis Test (CMT) are provided as an aid in monitoring udder health.

All of this information is fed into a computer, which is programmed to provide monthly summaries of both individual cows and the whole herd.

This information is provided to the producer.

There are more than 20 testing plans under DHIA program. The dairy farmer has the option to choose the plan(s) that can help meet his objectives.

In addition to the monthly record provided by a testing program, it is important for determining genetic progress to have lifetime records on each individual animal. This should provide complete identification of the individual animal, individual lifetime lactation summaries, breeding records, calving records, and health and veterinary records. Production records are used for individual animal evaluation.

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