Orchid - Dairy Software for Windows PC
Orchid Dairy Software for Windows PC is a fast and reliable program that runs on any version of Microsoft Windows.
Orchid Dairy Software offers you new insights into your herd’s performance and cuts tedious office work right down to size. The basic package gives you all the tools you need for managing your cow breeding calendar, plus legislative recording functions for cross compliance and farm assurance.
If you would like to trial this software with your own data, please click here.
The costs of any fertility problem in the dairy herd can be significant, but because they are indirect costs they can be easily overlooked. These costs come mainly through lost milk yield, disrupted calving pattern and higher AI and vet costs. Monitoring and improving herd fertility performance starts with good record keeping and Orchid Dairy Software gives you the tools to record and monitor both individual cows and the herd as a whole.
Which cows need serving today? – You need flexible Action ListsGetting your cows back in calf at the earliest opportunity is vital to profitability. This requires accurate record keeping, especially with today’s larger herds. The Orchid Dairy Software “Your Herd Today” screens give you flexible action lists for the week ahead, including cows that are:
- Due for Service
- Due for PD
- Due to Dry off
- Due to Calve
You can quickly drill into these lists to view and enter information for the individual animals. Action lists can be printed off for farm staff or your veterinary surgeon.
Cow Fertility Analysis and ReportingThe benefit of accurate record keeping will be high quality management reports. Progressive measurements like 100 day in-calf rate and 200 day not in-calf rates can be produced from the Orchid Dairy in just a few mouse clicks. You can easily tune report parameters to suit your herd management regime; for example, the “voluntary waiting period” after calving can be adjusted to meet the needs of pedigree and commercial animals.
A full range of graphical fertility reports are available within the Orchid Fertility module, including Cusum and a graphical breeding chart similar to the “bray board”.
Milking PerformanceCan you easily monitor cows with the highest cell counts?
Monitoring milk performance over the course of the lactation is another key area for management reporting. Animals with consistently high cell counts need to be identified for possible culling. Orchid Dairy Software has several reports which help you do all this quickly and easily.
- Set a cell count threshold to highlight all cow above this level
- View the number of times a cow has been over the set threshold, plus the average
- Spans over consecutive lactations
- Export data to CSV (spreadsheet) file
- Analysis for the whole herd and for single cows using imported milk test results
- Examine the effect on the calculated bulk tank cells by excluding high cell count cow – keep the most milk in the tank while maintaining bulk tank below a threshold level
Legislative Recording Keeping
Adding animal purchase and sale records into Orchid Dairy Software will automatically update the movement book and the direct link to the CTS means means you only have to enter the information once, which saves time and improves accuracy.
The basic package includes the following functions:
- Flexible action lists – services, PDs, drying off and calvings
- Event reports – breeding events plus purchases, sales and deaths
- Cow overview – breeding and lactation historie
- Movement book and Herd Register
- On-farm animal tally and family tree
- Link to CTS for passport applications and movement notification
- Highlights poor performing animals
- Mastitis cell count reports
- Cell count contribution calculation
- Due to dry off report – with cell counts
- Individual lactation graphs
- Lactation histories
- Links to NMR and CIS
- Detailed fertility analysis including cusum, oestrus periods, etc
- Instant fertility snapshot for herd
- Flexible action reports
- Stock control for AI straws
- Records every foodstuff for individual animals with costs
- Easy to use feed dispensing
- Feeding print out
- Feed history
- Veterinary history for every animal
- Medicine stock control
- Problem analysis
- Can be used as a standalone program
- Detailed herd costings and reports
- Compares outputs per calving month
- Can be used as a standalone program with the Costings module
- Based on individual cow breeding and yield data
- Standalone version can be set up and adjusted for complete flexibility
Yes, you can import your data from several sources including:
- NMR datastream
- CIS datastream
- CTS “cattle on holding” file
- Your own spreadsheet data (wherever possible)