“RADE HAVE MANAGED THE AHDB DAIRY BREEDING+ WEBSITE SINCE 2005 AND WE’VE BEEN VERY HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE THEY PROVIDE”
AHDB DAIRY
A division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board
Project Scope
The aim of this project was to bring the Breeding+ website into line with new AHDB Dairy branding and update the site’s functionality to improve the user experience.
Solution
Rade developed a system which publishes online the latest UK dairy cattle genetic evaluation results, explanations on genetic evaluations and statistics for all major dairy breeds. Information for bulls, top cows and herd genetics information is made available. Data for the website is collated and prepared by Scottish Agricultural College.
Now in its ninth year, the system continues to provide valuable data to dairy farmers and breeders alike.
The Breeding+ website was set up to provide an online resource of key breeding and genetics information for the national herd.
Personal herd reports can be accessed via the herd owner’s unique login.
Data sheets for individual bulls are made available via a search tool – searchable by name or herdbook number.
New data elements include revised functionality for multiple-herd owners, filters to easier data search and a completely revised fact sheet showing information about each bull/cow stored in the system.
Herd Genetic Reports (HGRs) are available to all UK dairy farmers who milk record. They are available in two formats: Individual Cow reports and Genetic Herd Report summary.
Tools include the £PLI – Profitable Lifetime Index to help select bulls for a breeding programme to suit a farmer’s herd. The £SCI – Spring Calving Index – introduced in August 2014, matches bulls to suit herds which operate a spring block-calving system.
One of the key challenges was to provide a means to enable SAC to make regular updates from very large data sets. Using a bespoke data integration module, Rade provide a system for automated import, enabling the team at DairyCo to publish information regularly to specific deadlines.
Profile
AHDB Dairy is a levy-funded, not-for-profit organisation working on behalf of Britain's dairy farmers. It provides a source for the latest UK genetic evaluation results and statistical analysis for all major dairy breeds. AHDB Dairy is a division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board