Do you know what your herd’s health events cost you? Or are you managing multiple dairies? Two new DairyComp features, HealthVAL and OneView, bring real-time insights to your fingertips for easier and more precise herd management.

Both features are available to all DairyComp or MyDC on PULSE users:

• HealthVAL makes evaluating and monitoring costs for the most common herd health events easier.
• OneView helps farms managing multiple dairy locations rapidly and accurately analyze inventory, monitor historical trends and create projections.

“Within minutes, HealthVAL allows you to quickly dig into the costs of health events by animal to assess your herd and make timely management decisions,” says Preston Vincent, VP of sales at VAS. “If you’re managing animals across multiple dairies or from dairy to heifer grower, OneView brings information together in one dashboard for quicker, simplified management.”

Here’s an overview of these new features:

HealthVAL

HealthVAL is a new insight tool that analyzes a dairy’s health events and trends for cows and heifers.

Within HealthVAL, the Health Index Analysis tracks the cost and occurrence of key health events, including mastitis, pneumonia, lameness, metritis, retained placenta, ketosis, milk fever and displaced abomasum. Farmers can customize the health events they want to track and set a threshold for each and the total cost per event. A suggested cost is preloaded based on industry standards from the Journal of Dairy Science.

“The index makes it easier to identify the animals costing a farm more,” says Vincent. “You can quickly assess problem animals, what type of health events have contributed to their accumulated cost and when those costs were incurred.”

Herd managers can also set up text or email alerts for when data exceeds health event thresholds. Setting thresholds can help you focus on specific health events challenging your herd – such as milk fever with fresh cows. You can make changes faster for more precise management by enabling the alert function. Users can set up as many alerts as needed and manage who receives them, including key consultants.

Benchmarking herd health performance against other herds is also available. You can customize the herd size, region and breed to which you want to compare your farm.

OneView

Farms managing animals at multiple locations can combine and analyze all their data in a single company dashboard with OneView. Farmers can view animal inventory, historical trends and projections within the dashboard.

“OneView takes the place of multiple spreadsheets and puts information into one convenient and easy-to-use web-based platform,” says Brett Barlass, California Dairy Farms. “It will be one of my staple tools.”

Data can be viewed in multiple ways – by lactation, breed, reproduction status, changes in the herd, health events, age and lactation. It can also be filtered by facility type so you can compare across locations, such as dairies or heifer growers. You can more easily plan for the future by viewing projections up to six months out for key performance metrics such as culling rate, dry period, sexed semen use and more. With this forecasting, you can more effectively manage labor and resources. Data is displayed in graphic and table form and can be exported as a CSV file.

“When developing these new tools, we wanted the data to present itself so dairy farmers could see and analyze trends within minutes to inform herd management decisions,” says Vincent. “Farmers can quickly view the data in interactive graphs and charts using minimal clicks and customize the features to reflect their farm’s goals.”

HealthVAL and OneView are now available through VAS PULSE Platform for DairyComp and MyDC on PULSE users. To set up these insights for your dairy, visit PULSE Platform or contact VAS customer support at 559-686-9496.

VAS is the global market leader in connected farm management systems. For 40 years, VAS has been the operating system of choice for the most innovative dairies. VAS' software and information solutions help collect and connect a farm's data – from herd management to feed performance, tracking and more. These insights are a source of truth, empowering producers and their trusted advisors to make profit-driven and sustainable management decisions. At the forefront of thought leadership within the dairy industry, VAS is trusted by the producers we serve and the greater dairy community.