Development of a Benchmarking Tool for Dairy Herd Management Using Routinely Collected Herd Records

Simple Summary Continuous monitoring of the herd status is important but routine assessments on farm can be challenging. In this study, a remote herd assessment tool was developed to help producers and advisors detect herd management issues related to herd welfare and health. This tool was based on pre-recorded indicators from routinely collected on-farm records. Indicators were aggregated to a composite index to benchmark the overall herd status, with a large composite index indicating an overall high herd status and a small composite index indicating an overall low herd status. Robustness of the composite index was evaluated and indicated little fluctuation for herds with a low or high status. These results suggest that herds in need of support could be prioritized and effectively monitored over time, limiting the need for time-consuming farm visits. The benchmarking tool allows evaluating herds relative to their peers, highlights areas with opportunities to improve, may be further suitable for certification systems, and may be applied to studies to benchmark multidimensional aspects of livestock farming such as environmental and socio-economic studies. Continuous assessment of the herd status is important in order to monitor and adjust to changes in the welfare and health status but can be time consuming and expensive. In this study, herd status indicators from routinely collected dairy herd improvement (DHI) records were used to develop a remote herd assessment tool with the aim to help producers and advisors benchmark the herd status and identify herd management issues affecting welfare and health. Thirteen DHI indicators were selected from an initial set of 72 potential indicators collected on 4324 dairy herds in Eastern Canada. Data were normalized to percentile ranks and aggregated to a composite herd status index (HSI) with equal weights among indicators. Robustness analyses indicated little fluctuation for herds with a small HSI (low status) or large HSI (high status), suggesting that herds in need of support could be prioritized and effectively monitored over time, limiting the need for time-consuming farm visits. This tool allows evaluating herds relative to their peers through the composite index and highlighting specific areas with opportunities for improvements through the individual indicators. This procedure could be applied to similar multidimensional livestock farming issues, such as environmental and socio-economic studies.