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SOFTWARE

BokerTov

A Record-Keeping and Analysis Program for Beef Herds at Pasture

Dep. of Agron. and Nat. Resour., Inst. of Field Crops, Agric. Res. Organ., The Volcani Cent., P.O.B. 6, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel

* Corresponding author (eugene{at}agri.gov.il)

Many aspects of managing and studying animal production systems require information at the level of the individual animal to be gathered and processed. BokerTov is a biologically oriented, computerized database for managing beef suckler herds at pasture, with individual-based records. It was developed for research and commercial purposes and aims to meet the needs of a busy but computer literate manager. A defining feature of the program is the ability to track an animal's location in the system by recording every location change and its date for each cow (Bos taurus) and each calf. For each cow, information is stored regarding the identity, parentage, birth, entry into and exit from the system, liveweight, body condition score, and pregnancy diagnosis. A record is maintained of dates of calving (or abortion) and the identity of calves born. For the calf population, information is stored regarding the identity, parentage, birth, weaning, exit from the system, sale, price, and performance from weaning to exit. There are routines for editing existing data and creating criteria-based lists. Data analysis includes the creation of dynamic and flexibly structured multiseason summary tables on various aspects of system performance, including cow and calf population dynamics, calf performance, animal-days accumulated at different locations over time, calving intervals, and productivity. The program was developed within the spreadsheet program Microsoft Excel, with a macro interface, and it runs on Mac and PC computers. Data are stored in simply structured worksheet files, which are directly accessible in read-only mode on quitting BokerTov.

Abbreviations: ID, identification