The Females View - Locating Females
This section describes how to locate females in the Females View of MISTRO Farm
The “Females View” window describes details of all females in all herds under your control and provides worksheets for recording all information releveant to individual cows.
Then click the third of the “View” buttons labelled Females.
As with other views, the left hand side is used to locate the current record. In this case, the record will be the information stored for a cow, heifer, or heifer calf. Let’s start looking at the functions of the left hand panel which remains visible at all times unless you are viewing a User List (as we shall see later)
· Cow – This field is used to type in part of the cow’s identity. MISTRO then searches the field nominated by the Search on box for cow closest to your entry in the Cow field.
· Scope - This is used to limit your search to a particular class of stock. For example, only search the milking cows or the dry cows.
· Group No - This is used to limit your search to cows that have been allocated to a particular herd group number. Each cow can be given a group number using the data entry field circled in the previous screen images. For example, this is useful if you allocate autumn calving cows to herd group number 1, and spring calving cows to herd group number 2. You can then limit the search to one of these specific groups.
Most operators use the herd recording number of the cow to identify individual animals. MISTRO will select the Recording # as the preferred identifier to work with. If you wish to use another type of identifier, click the arrow at the right of the Search on box to reveal a list of options. You may locate an animal using any of the following identifiers.
Dries & Milkers
Dries & Heifers
Calves, heifers, 2 year olds, 3 year olds, 4 year olds, Mature
When locating animals, remember to type in the number you want, and then wait a second or so to see that animal’s data presented on the screen.
The “Females View” window describes details of all females in all herds under your control and provides worksheets for recording all information releveant to individual cows.
To open the “Females” view:
Click the Views section title at the top of the main menu.
Then click the third of the “View” buttons labelled Females.
The Aussie Females view.
If your copy of MISTRO Farm has been loaded with data by your herd recording centre, it will contain a database of all information that has been recorded for your cows. You should already have plenty of data to work with.
As with other views, the left hand side is used to locate the current record. In this case, the record will be the information stored for a cow, heifer, or heifer calf. Let’s start looking at the functions of the left hand panel which remains visible at all times unless you are viewing a User List (as we shall see later)
The Kiwi Females view.
7.1 Locating the female(s) that you want to work with.
The left hand panel of the “Females” view is used to identify which cow you wish to work with. This is done using five special fields at the top of the panel. The four fields are labelled:
· Herd mask – This is used to limit your search to a particular herd.
· Search on – This is used to determine what identity you wish to search on. For example, you might want to search for the registered name of an animal rather than its herd recording number.
· Cow – This field is used to type in part of the cow’s identity. MISTRO then searches the field nominated by the Search on box for cow closest to your entry in the Cow field.
· Scope - This is used to limit your search to a particular class of stock. For example, only search the milking cows or the dry cows.
· Group No - This is used to limit your search to cows that have been allocated to a particular herd group number. Each cow can be given a group number using the data entry field circled in the previous screen images. For example, this is useful if you allocate autumn calving cows to herd group number 1, and spring calving cows to herd group number 2. You can then limit the search to one of these specific groups.
7.1.1 Nominating which herd you wish to use.
Many herds contain cows that have their mothers or grandmothers located in other herds. One of MISTRO’s main tasks is to maintain pedigree information for all cows in your herd. To do this, it must maintain records for these animals in other herds. For this reason, there will usually be more than one herd identifier loaded into your database.
Most of the time, you will only be interested in the cows within one herd, and this is identified by your herd’s code or number. When you open the “Females” view, the herd mask should be set to your herd’s identity. If it is not, you should nominate your preferred herd ID using the Setup utility (see page 125).
You can select an alternative herd to work with in two ways. You can type the ID you require into the herd mask box, or you can click on the small arrow to the right of the box to display a list of herds currently loaded on the system. Then click on the herd ID you wish to use. This will be an important task for operators who wish to maintain records of two herds on their system.
In some circumstances you may wish to view all the females loaded on your database. In this situation, you should clear the herd mask by clicking in the box and then pressing the delete button to clear the field. This will remove any limit to a particular herd ID.
7.1.2 Deciding on a search field (Search on)
Aussie: · Herd recording number – eg 1926 · A preferred identity or short name – eg 926 or DAISY · Registered name – eg GLENTHOMSON DAISY III · National ID – eg The Australian national ID of 29901234 · Other ID – eg an old freeze brand · Electronic ID – the transponder number for the cow. · Herd book number – the stud’s herd book identification number · NLIS ID – the number on the NLIS tag eg 3WLFA003ABC00341 |
Kiwi: · Herd testing/recording number – eg 326 – This number is used for herd testing purposes and is reallocated to another animal when the cow leaves the herd. · A preferred identity or short name – This can be any identifier but is usually set to the herd testing number. This number is retained when the cow is sold, and provides a history of cows on number 326 in your herd if used in this way. · Registered name – eg GLENTHOMSON DAISY III · MISTRO ID – The internal MISTRO ID allocated to keep track of your cow. · Other ID – eg an old freeze brand · Electronic ID – the transponder number for the cow. · Herd book number – the stud’s herd book identification number · Birth ID – the identify allocated to an animal at birth. This is the Kiwi national identifier –eg LDH-03-12 |
Most operators use the herd recording number of the cow to identify individual animals. MISTRO will select the Recording # as the preferred identifier to work with. If you wish to use another type of identifier, click the arrow at the right of the Search on box to reveal a list of options. You may locate an animal using any of the following identifiers.
7.1.3 Limiting your search to particular groups of animals (Scope)
You can reduce the chance of making data entry errors by limiting the scope of animals you wish to work with. For example, if you are drying cows off, you will not be interested in anything but the milking herd. You will therefore reduce the possibility for errors if you limit the scope of data entry to just the milking cows.
Setting the scope appropriately also makes it much easier to check information on a particular group of cows.
The program selects Current when you first open the view. You can modify the selected scope by clicking on the small arrow to the right of the Scope box. This will reveal a range of options that includes:
Current All females that are currently alive and running in your herd. Animals that have been sold or transferred to other herds are excluded from current operations. This is the option that is usually used when you are looking up information on individual cows.
Milkers All females that are currently in milk. This option should be selected when you are entering information where only milkers need to be considered. For example, when drying off or selling cull cows directly from the herd.
Dries All adult cows (have milked for at least one lactation) that are currently dry. You would select this scope when entering treatments that are used during the dry period.
Dries & Milkers
View all the current adult cows in the herd, whether milking or dry. This is useful when you want to check total numbers during the later part of the season when some cows are milking and some are dry.
Dries & Heifers
Adult dry cows and heifers that are more than 14 months of age. You would select this scope when entering calving dates. These are the animals that can potentially calve in the next 12 months.
Yet to calve All animals that have never yet calved.
Not on heat All cows with a calving date that have not yet been detected on heat. You would select this scope when checking what treatments have been given to your non-cycling cows.
Due on heat All cows with a heat/service recorded 18-24 days previously.
Not served All cows with a calving date that have not yet been served.
Due to calve All cows that are due to calve based on a positive pregnancy diagnosis or a non return to heat following a recorded service.
Calves, heifers, 2 year olds, 3 year olds, 4 year olds, Mature
Animals in each age classification. Note that calves become heifers at 14 months of age. This means, that 14-15 months after the start of calving, you might find some calves have moved to the next agegroup, while others have not.
All animals
Don’t restrict the scope of the search to any particular type of animal. Dead and sold cows and cows that have been transferred to other herds will be included in the search.
Terminated Restrict your search to animals that have been terminated.
To register Restrict your search to animals that have no herd book number recorded. This can be used to track calves that have not been registered with a breed society.
A very useful feature of using the scope field is to obtain a quick count of the animals in a particular group. For example, if you nominate the required herd number, and set the scope to 2 year olds, the matching animals will be extracted and the number in the group will be displayed at the bottom of the Lookup grid under the title “Records”. The lookup grid is located in the centre of the left hand panel.
7.1.4 The lookup grid.
Once you have nominated a particular group of animals to choose from, a listing will appear in the Lookup grid. They will be arranged in order of the field nominated for searching on.
The left column indicates each female’s current status (using the colour code described below the columns). Green means the cows are on the go and milking. Yellow means they are getting reading to go (dry), and red means dead (or sold). The blue shades indicate replacement stock and purple indicates cows that have been transferred to another centre.
The next column lists the cows in the sequence selected. The total number of records located in the grid is indicated at the bottom left of the grid under the title “Records”.
7.1.5 Finding the female you require.
There are two ways to locate a female in MISTRO. You can use the keyboard to type all or part of the animal’s identifier into the Cow: box. When you type a value into this field, MISTRO waits for you to finish typing (a second or two), and then it will search for the nearest match to what you have typed. The panels at the right will be updated with the information relating to that animal.
If MISTRO does not find the exact match you are looking for, you can then use the up and down arrow keys to move the current position in the lookup grid to the previous or next record in the database. As you do this, the identity in the Cow box changes. When you have the required entry in the Cow box, press the Enter key to commence operation on that animal.
The operation that is invoked depends on which “Females” tab you have open at the time (see following sections).
The second method of locating a cow is to search in the lookup grid for the animal you require using the mouse. You can do this by clicking the arrows at the top and the bottom of the scroll bar to the right of the grid. This moves the current record forward or backward one record. Clicking above or below the scroll bar indicator moves the grid a page of records at a time. When you see the animal you require in the grid, click on it to highlight it, and then click the Do It button to commence operation on that animal.
The third option is to mix the use of the keyboard and the mouse where appropriate. Usually the keyboard is the best option to use when you are entering data, but the mouse is often easier when you just want to pick odd cows out to check their data.
When locating animals, remember to type in the number you want, and then wait a second or so to see that animal’s data presented on the screen.
