Data Analysis (DigiFarm)
Analysis of fertility and disease data can allow us to work together to spot trends and act upon them before the financial impact is too great. DigiFarm is a unique system which allows all of your farm data to be collated and reports generated ready for analysis and and for any audits you might have.
Available free to all Champion Dairy and Supreme Dairy Fertility members, DigiFarm is a recently launched bespoke health tracking service provided in partnership by Kingshay and vetPartners Farm.
With monthly data collection led by your routine vet, the DigiFarm programme looks at herd level incidence data with a focus on productivity and health.
Benefits
Reports highlight strengths and prioritise any areas of weaknesses to target
Benchmark against farms with similar objectives – the more farms we have inputting data, the more useful this benchmarking is
Providing a financial assessment of the cost of poor herd health and the potential savings from making changes
Herd health planning made easier with annual reports easily generated through the DigiFarm service using data collected throughout the year
Eventually service aims to link data from a number of sources (e.g. NMR, BCMS, vet laboratories) to a mobile app service for farmers, currently still in development
Getting started
Your routine vet will provide you with a DigiFarm pack containing blank monthly input forms, guidance notes on how to fill in the data and also a start up form which allows DigiFarm and Kingshay to register your herd with the service.
Data can then be entered month by month by your vet. We also have the ability to retrospectively put data into the database, so also filling out a 12 month backdate form will help improve the value of the subsequent reports by providing a year’s worth of information from your existing records.
Recording data
In most cases this will be taking two minutes at the end of a fertility visit to draw information from your diary, software or other records.
This is collated onto the data collection forms for you to fill out each month for the the vet to collect at the routine visit.
We also have an A3 calendar monthly tally chart version which could be laminated to be put up in the office which the vet can photograph each month, whichever format is easier for you to record the data.
Your routine vet will then input the monthly information into the database ensuring the data is at hand whenever a report is required.
Generating reports
DigiFarm will generate reports based on the data collected from your farm records.
These are detailed five page reports detailing annual herd performance with regards to udder health, fertility, lameness, culling, and calf health.
The analysis also shows the average performance over the last three months, compares performance this year compared to last year and benchmarks your farm compared to the rest of the group.
Other reports can also be created by the service, including a longevity report which would be useful to identify issues related to culling rate, and a farm assurance report which can be useful for farm assurance audits.
