Introduction to Total Herd Reporting

GW MEMBER EDUCATION Introduction to Total Herd Reporting

By Taylor Buckley

For several years, the American Gelbvieh Association (AGA), and many other beef breed associations, have practiced total herd reporting. The concept of total herd reporting requires each member to record and report data on the entire registered herd.

The AGA implements total herd reporting using the Association’s herd assessment process to encourage breeders to report on all active cows within the herdbook. Starting January 1 each year, AGA asks members to report all females in their member account by completing their annual herd assessment. All females 13 months of age or older need to be either assessed or disposed by the deadline of March 15 (if this date falls on a weekend, it will be the business day immediately following that weekend). This herd assessment credit given to each female allows members to register one calf (or natural-born multiples) per year, record data on the calf and the cow, and transfer the animal. Utilizing an inventory-based fee structure rather than traditional calf-based registration fees enourages the reporting and registering of all calves, rather than cherry-picking which animals are registered and reported on.

As a part of the total herd reporting process, members are asked to either record a calf for every female assessed or record a reason code for why she did not have a calf in that year. Calves should be recorded and females should be reported for in a timely manner so that there is a record for every year of that female’s productive life. The inventory screen under Herd Mgmt on the AGA Online Registry Service is a useful tool when not only applying herd assessments, but also checking to see which females still need reported on. The “No Progeny” tab allows members to see which assessed females still need reported on and members can easily put multiple females in a birth recording queue or use the golden scroll icon to report a reason code for no calf.

When it comes to reporting further information on animals within a herd, there are two important factors that go into reporting information: accurate phenotypic data and contemporary grouping. Phenotypic data includes observational data like weights, temperment, calving ease, etc. It is important to take time for accurate data collection, such as making sure the scale is cleaned off, to ensure the data is truly representative of that animal. Contemporary groups are one of the most important ascpects of an accurate genetic evaluation. Reporting information on entire contemporary groups is very important within expected progeny difference (EPD) calculations and helps make the EPDs more reflective of the animal’s performance potential. However, it is very important to make sure that animals that were treated differently or had different environmental effects are contemporaried separate from the rest of the herd. For example, show calves that are being treated differently and given a separate feed ration should be put into a separate contemporary group. Members are able to differentiate these types of management using management codes within the data recording queues on the AGA Online Registry Service. Total herd reporting is meant to improve the collection of performance information on all active animals and therefore helps to improve the accuracy for the AGA database. More accurate data fulfills the association’s ultimate goal of providing commercial producers with information they can effectively utilize and trust. F