| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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)
 |
ABSTRACT |
|---|
 TOPNOTES ABSTRACT INTRODUCTIONPROGRAM DESCRIPTIONDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
Abbreviations: ID, identification
|
INTRODUCTION |
|---|
|
TOPNOTESABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONPROGRAM DESCRIPTIONDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
Computerized record-keeping systems offer an enormous expansion of data handling and analytical capabilities over manual, hard-copy methods and are probably essential for herds numbering hundreds of animals. Most importantly, they can incorporate rules for maintaining the internal logical consistency of the data set. Data items of the same animal are logically linked, as are those between cow and offspring and those between animal events and physical location of the animal over time.
Many commercially available software packages have been developed to serve various sectors of the beef industry (e.g., visit www.aabp.org/software/softwarelibrarybeef.htm; verified 28 Dec. 2001), including the beef cattle producer. Each has its own areas of emphasis and style of interface. Examples of packages that keep records at the level of the individual animal are given in Table 1. These programs have a business orientation, often reflecting local prevalent management practice, and are less suited to the research context. Most of these packages do not facilitate the individual-level tracking of animal location over time. A number of programs include a pastoral component, but they tend to offer limited integration between animal events and location changes and few analysis options related to animal location over time. Overall, these programs provide limited flexibility in data manipulation, presentation, and analysis compared with general-purpose spreadsheet programs. Few ranchers in Israel use herd management programs in contrast to the country's dairy farmers, who use sophisticated and comprehensive software packages for animal inventory and herd management (e.g., Spahr et al., 1993).
|
|
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION |
|---|
|
TOPNOTESABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONPROGRAM DESCRIPTIONDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
BokerTov comprises approximately 7000 lines of executable code, structured in autonomous macros that are opened and closed as needed by a master routine. The size of the package is 1.2 megabytes (MB), not including data or user's manual. There are no special hardware or software requirements to run BokerTov, beyond Microsoft Excel version 4.0 or later. The program can be mastered quickly by playing with a sample system. BokerTov is available free from the author (send an email request to eugene{at}agri.gov.il).
Animal Identification
There are two animal classes: reproductive stock (cows) and their offspring (calves). Cows can have up to three forms of identification (ID). In Israel, the three forms would commonly be a brand; a large, plastic ear tag; and a small, metal ear tag required by the veterinary services. Calves can have two forms of ID. Only unique alphanumeric values are permitted within each form of ID. The ID of an animal can be changed (subject to logical constraints), and an animal can be completely deleted from the system.
It is not unusual for a registered animal to lose all forms of ID, and a second, unlinked identity can be assigned to such cows or calves. Information gathered about such newly identified animals can be excluded (to avoid double counting) or included in the computation of summary statistics.
Animal Location
The physical locations of all cows and calves are recorded over their lifetime in the system. This enables the program to compute the number of animal-days at any location (paddock, feedlot, etc.) over any specified time period. This is an important expression of utilization for grazed locations. The program automatically treats the movements of nursing dams together with those of their calves and vice versa. At weaning, the program requires a change of location of either cow or calf.
Maintaining an internally consistent set of data on animal location over time is not trivial. The location of mother and offspring must match from birth till weaning, at which point they generally diverge. Furthermore, events registered for a cow and its offspring can be logically linked, as in the weaning of a calf if mortality of the dam is recorded. Logical consistency must be maintained when existing data that relate to animal location are edited, and much program code is devoted to that task.
File Structure
The six data files of BokerTov are standard Microsoft Excel files containing one worksheet each. Row 1 of each worksheet contains the name of the field stored in each column. The field names are largely self-explanatory and are given in Table 2. For each cow, a record (row) of data regarding the identity, parentage, birth, entry into and exit from the system, liveweight, body condition score, and pregnancy diagnosis is stored in (the Microsoft Excel worksheet data file) COWS. In the file CALVINGS, a record containing dates of calving (and abortion) and the identity of calves born is maintained for each cow. For each calf, a record (row) of data regarding identity, parentage, birth, weaning, exit out of the system, sale, price, and performance from weaning to exit is stored in the file CALVES.
|
The CALVINGS file is structured similarly to the location files in that calving events (date of calving and calf ID) are inserted next to the cow ID. The program allows the recording of twins. Since Excel spreadsheets can contain 256 columns, the CALVINGS, COWLOC, and CLFLOC files can store a maximum of 127 calvings and 127 location changes for an animal over its lifetime in the system. This number of location changes may be a limitation in highly intensive grazing systems.
The file WEIGHPD stores information regarding the liveweight, body score, and pregnancy diagnosis of animals in the herd. A new row of data is added to the file for each recording event for each animal. This file structure is convenient for creating summary tables by means of the PivotTable feature within Excel or for data export and analysis by statistical packages.
The file LISTS stores system-level parameters that are used by the data input routines for logical checks and lists that are used by various dialog boxes. Examples of such parameters are the minimum acceptable calving interval and the minimum acceptable cow weight. The main lists are of the system locations, cow entry codes, calf weaning codes, cow and calf exit codes, breeds, sires, colors, and clients. All lists are customized to the user's system.
Because information gathered on individual animals under extensive field conditions is often incomplete, the user is permitted to enter unknown (-1) for almost all input fields in BokerTov, including the date of critical events (e.g., birth, weaning, and sale), the ID of a calf's mother, or the ID of the offspring of a cow's calving. BokerTov does not recognize bulls as a separate class of animals. Bulls can be entered as if they were cows or into a separate BokerTov system.
The Input–Output Routines
BokerTov requires that events for the same animal be entered in chronological order, which should be the case if the flow of information from the field to the computer is efficient. There are eight main input–output routines.
NewCow
This routine enables the user to initialize a new cow in the herd. A new cow receives a one-row entry in the files COWS, COWLOC, and CALVINGS. A new cow can come from inside or outside the system. In the former case, the ID of the animal as a calf as well as a number of other fields that are common to the CALVES and COWS files, are transferred to (file) COWS automatically. File COWLOC is initialized with the location of the cow in the system and the entry date.
Calving
This routine enables the user to record a calving in one of three ways, subject to logical checks (Fig. 1)
: (i) a specified cow gave birth to an unspecified calf on a known or unknown date, (ii) a specified calf was born to an unspecified cow on a known or unknown date, or (iii) both cow and calf are specified. In the latter case, registration occurs in CALVES, CLFLOC, and CALVINGS, and the location of the calf from the date of birth until the current date is transcribed from the cow's to the calf's location data.
|
The calving routine checks inputs against current file data and determines if any logical conflict prevents standard registration. If conflicts are found, the program offers one-click solutions, which form a convenient alternative to the need to execute a number of editing steps. More than 20 permutations of currently existing and inputted (i.e., newly entered) data are identified and interfaced with a dialog box. A subroutine to realign a calf's location with that of its mother is invoked as needed.
Move/Wean/Exit
Animal movements from one location to another within the system are registered via this routine. The exit of an animal from the system (for whatever reason) and weaning entail a change of location, so these events are handled together with within-system moves in a single routine.
In addition to the date of change of location and the identity of the cow or calf, the user indicates the intended action to be taken by the program. The action for cows can be (i) move the cow only for nonlactating cows, (ii) move with sucking calf or calves, or (iii) wean and move cow only. In the latter case, weaning parameters are requested and registered for any of the cow's progeny that have not been weaned, but no move is registered for these calves. In Cases i and iii, the destination location of the cow can be outside the system, in which case cow exit parameters are requested and registered.
The actions taken by the program for calves can be (i) move the calf only for weaners, (ii) move with lactating cow, or (iii) wean and move calf only. In the latter case, weaning parameters are requested and registered. In Cases i and iii, the destination location of the calf can be outside the system, in which case calf exit parameters are requested and registered.
MatchMaker
In some management systems, the complete registration of a calving is a three-step process:
Editor
The Editor routine enables existing data to be changed, subject to constraints of internal file consistency. The option Delete Last Move enables the user to undo the most recent move recorded for a cow or calf, including associated actions such as exiting and weaning. It can be invoked repeatedly for the same animal until its complete deletion from the files.
Printer
The Printer routine enables the user to generate customized lists of animals for printing. Building the list is a three-step process:
GetInfo
This routine extracts all information related to a single cow or calf and presents it systematically on a worksheet. An example of an extraction based on a cow ID is shown in Fig. 2
. For extractions based on a calf ID, the information comprises all data from file CALVES, all location changes of the calf and their dates, and data from COWS for the mother of the calf.
|
This routine is interfaced with the use of passive transponders for the electronic ID of animals. The input file is produced by a fixed or hand-held device in the field during inventory control or weighing of animals. The user provides a master file to convert the electronic IDs to standard ones.
The Analysis Routines
The analysis routines generate summary tables on many aspects of herd dynamics and calf production. Processing of the extended database is by macro routines. One of their functions is to compute temporary variables in the files. For example, the variable PRESENT is set to 0 if the animal has exited the system and to 1 if the animal is currently present in the system. The variable BDAGYEAR specifies the agricultural year of birth of a cow or calf according to any base date, enabling performance to be examined by biological production cycle rather than calendar year. The variable TISYSTEM specifies the number of days each animal has been in the system.
The macros also generate a large number of powerful Microsoft Excel PivotTables for the user to manipulate. By default, the PivotTables span the entire database and not just a single season. Category variables such as PRESENT and BDAGYEAR are defined as page fields, which add considerable functionality to the PivotTables. Double-clicking any cell in a PivotTable generates a separate worksheet with a dump of all records (animals) that belong to the cell. Suspect results can be checked rapidly, and customized lists can be generated with ease by means of this feature.
Many important views of the production system are derived using more intricate algorithms. These include the time course of level of animal presence for each location in the system. Matrices of cow age structure over time and productivity are also generated.
Analysis of Calf Population Dynamics and Performance
The routine generates a series of year by month summary tables for the number of calves born, weaned, and exited. A table summarizing all calves registered in the file CALVES is shown in Fig. 3
. Other tables generated by the routine include the average and the case counts for weaning weight, weaning age, exit weight, exit age, unit price, sale value, and daily growth rate from weaning to exit. For each variable analyzed, the PivotTable can be generated by using the date of birth, date of weaning, or date of exit as the time basis. Most of the PivotTables generated include BDAGYEAR, TYPE, PRESENT, SEX, WEANCODE, EXITCODE, COLOUR, SIRE, and Breed as page fields. This enables the researcher to query the data and structure the results in an almost unlimited number of ways. Figure 4
shows the use of the page fields to display calf performance for males that were marketed normally (EXITCODE = 23).
|
|
Cow-days and Calf-days by Location and Period
This routine computes the number of animal-days accumulated at every location in the system on a daily basis between any two dates. The resulting matrix of values is then summarized on a monthly basis as a PivotTable. Animal-days are computed separately for cows and calves. The routine also generates a one-dimensional PivotTable that summarizes the current number of animals at each location in the system. A list of the animals at any location can then be generated by a double-click of the mouse.
Calving Intervals
This routine generates a table comprising every pair of calving dates in the file CALVINGS that lie between specified dates and summarizes the data as a frequency distribution and as a PivotTable based on the year and month of either the first or second date of each calving interval (Fig. 5)
.
|
|
|
DISCUSSION |
|---|
|
TOPNOTESABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONPROGRAM DESCRIPTIONDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
The test ground for the development of BokerTov over the last decade has been Moshav Moledet, a collective settlement in the north of Israel, and the owner of the beef suckler herd that grazes at the Karei Deshe Experiment Station. The program was initialized with historical data for the cow population of the herd (approximately 1800 cows) transferred from a mainframe computer. The Karei Deshe system has since grown to about 2500 cows and 5000 calves (both exited and currently present). Over time, additional BokerTov systems have been added for managing the various beef herds and beef fattening operations of the settlement, totaling data on 4400 cows and 14000 calves. A semiretired rancher, with no prior computer experience, has operated all of the BokerTov systems. He spends approximately 10 h weekly running the input–output and analysis routines (on a slow, 66-MHz computer) for a current operation involving 1860 cows, their offspring, and 1600 purchased calves.
BokerTov stores the most basic information regarding each cow and calf in a beef production system for the quantitative analysis of animal productivity and pasture utilization. It provides direct yet protected access to animal data, which are stored in simply structured files in a familiar software environment that facilitates further data processing.
|
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
|---|
|
NOTES |
|---|
|
TOPNOTESABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONPROGRAM DESCRIPTIONDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
1 BokerTov in Hebrew can mean either "good cowboy" or "good morning," depending on accentuation. 
|
REFERENCES |
|---|
|
TOPNOTESABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONPROGRAM DESCRIPTIONDISCUSSIONREFERENCES |
|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
