In a whole farm management
perspective, the NDS Farm Structure is designed to handle the storage of
recipes for feeding groups
inside the herd.
It allows to create new farms, and for each of them, to create and manage several barns (location) with different pens (animals groups) receiving a specific recipe as exemplified by the following scheme:
We can get several advantages by setting the Farm Structure:
1. recipes can be stored in a logical way according to the physical set up of the farm and on the basis of feeding group available;
2. it is designed to handle the recipes for feeding groups inside the herd, allowing the user to supply the same recipe to different animal groups;
3. you can feed the same recipe to different feeding groups in different ways:
- horizontally: ration fed to the same animal type (e.g. High Lactating Cows to Primiparous Cows)
- vertically: ration fed to different animal types (e.g. Low Lactating Cows to Replacement heifers)
4. by simply assigning a base diet to different groups, the program will be able to define the current DMI level and will allow you to directly verify the expected results and performances for that group;
5. changing the origin recipe, the data of all the supplied recipes will be simultaneously updated: all the results and nutritional evaluations of different animals groups to which it is fed will be recalculated;
6. you can automatically keep the farm structure aligned with the external structure and automatically save the recipe files in a folder structure reproducing the farm structure.
The Farm Structure function
is designed to manage the organization of recipes for feed groups inside the herd,
allowing the user to supply the same recipe to different animal
groups.
With this feature, it is possible to organize the farm according to the structures available and, based on this, to feed the groups according to the physical set up of the farm.
By simply assigning a base diet to different groups, the program will be able to define the current DMI and it will be possible to directly verify the expected results and performances for that group.
Moreover, changing the origin recipe (also named formulated recipe), the data of all the supplied recipes will be simultaneously updated: all the results and nutritional evaluations of different animals groups to which it is fed will be recalculated.
It will be possible to add supplementary feeds to the administered rations, given in addition to the basis ration (pasture, top dressing, free choice mineral mix, etc.).
In order to activate the Farm Structure it is necessary to access the Working Group.
In the Working Group section, tick Enable, in order to enable the group to the management related to the structure of farms created.
On the main screen of NDS, the Farms Structure button will be enabled. By clicking on it, it will be possible to create new Farms and, for each of them, to create and manage different barns with various pens (animal groups). Through this, the user can specify which pens receive which ration.
To create a new farm, click on the Green Plus (+) button. Create then a new Barn, with at least one pen (that is a specific group of animals).
A context menu will appear if you right-click on any element (Farm, Barn, Pen); this will allow the user to perform, from time to time, different operations:
- add new barn or new Pen/Animal Group;
- modify the descriptive name of Barn or Pen/Animals Group;
- remove Barn or Pen/Animals Group;
- open the Recipes list already saved in the Working Group, in order to assign a recipe to a specific Pen.
ATTENTION!: It is necessary to assign the proper animal type to each Pen/Animals Group. In other words, every Pen contains a group of animals of the same type (Lactating Dairy Cows, Dry Cows, etc.). This must be specified in order to properly classify the recipes supplied to the Pen, so that they can be properly evaluated by the model according the animal type.
