Daily and Weekly Milk Weight Items

 

Dairy Comp stores a variety of milk data:  The last 8 lactation totals, 16 test days, the first 64 weekly averages, and the last 8 days of individual milkings.  This document describes how to extract these data as items.

 

The following item types are involved:

119      Dev. From avg for milking

120      Single milk on day

121      Single milk weekly average

122      Weekly average on DIM

123      Weekly average on item days

124      Total Lact. Production

125      Lact total as of item days 

126      Lact total as of item days

127      Proj 305 production

128      Proj 305 ME production

129      Daily Milk relative value

 

Examples of Daily Milk Items

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

M1     120    8    1  Today's first milking

M2     120    8    2  Today's second milking

M3     120    8    3  Today's third milking

MTOT   120    8    4  Today's total daily milk (M1+M2+M3)

 

The Op1 for the 120 series is the "Day Number", as they appear on the cowcard, starting from left to right.

The Op2 is "which milking", eg 1,2,3. and "4" for the total, and for 4X herds, "5" for MILK4.

 

Yesterday's milkings, for example, could be

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

Y1     120    7    1 First milking, yesterday

YTOT   120    7    4 Yesterday's total daily milk

DAY3   120    6    4 Total daily milk three days ago

DAY4   120    5    4 Total daily milk four days ago

 

These daily items are pulled from the daily milk weight data on page 6. Understanding the storage and usage of this data is necessary to understand how to use these items.

      1/9 1/10 1/11 1/12 1/13 1/14 1/15 Today Exp Dev Avg

       48   47   46      54   49   51    52  57  -4  42

       48   50   53   43   50   45   50    49  52  -3  48

Total  96   98   99  100  104   94  101   101 109  -8  91

 

The display shows the milk weight from a herd that milks 2 times a day.  The column labeled "Today" has the milk weight for 1/16.  Notice there are 8 days of milk weights shown.  To define the current weight for the first milking today, the item would be defined as:

Name:          M1

Item Type:     Single milk on day x

Milking Day:   8

Milking No.:   1

Description:   First milk weight for Today

 

Milking day starts at 1 (8 days ago) and goes to 8.  Milking number is 1 for the 1st milking, 2 for the 2nd, 3 for the 3rd and 4 for total daily milk for today.  For herds milking 4X, a 5 is used for the 4th milk weight. When the program was first developed, there were no herds milking 4 times a day.  Thus, we needed to add this unusual number system for 4X herds to not disrupt the existing users.

 

A few additional comments about daily milk data are in order.  If a cow is missing a milk weight, her total for the day is the known milk weights plus the weekly average for the missing weight. (See 1/12 in the table above.)  Also, while the weights are displayed in the nearest whole number, they actually store data to the nearest half unit.  Thus, on 1/10 logically 47 + 50 should equal 97 but each must have an additional 0.5 to the separate weight so 98 is the true total daily milk.

 

The "averages" are items that represent the seven-day average (excluding the latest milking.) These 4 items are defined similarly, with item type 121. 

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

AVG1   121    1    0 Current week 1st milk average

AVG2   121    2    0 Current week 2nd milk average

AVG3   121    3    0 Current week 3rd milk average

MAVG   121    4    0 Current week average milk

 

Notice the "Op2" is a zero in these examples, this gives a 7 day average. Op2 can be used to represent the number of days in the average , for example

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

3DAVG  121    4    3 Average of last three daily totals.

 

You can create items which return the "expected" daily milks, like the "Exp" column on the Page 6, which represent an arithmetic moving time average. These are retrieved using "99" as the day number.

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

DMEXP  121    4   99 Expected daily milk total

EXPM1  121    1   99 Expected for milking 1

 

The "deviations" are items which represent the difference between the current milking and the seven day average. These 4 items are defined with item type 119. For example (remember these are for a single cow, not the herd) :

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

DEV1   119    1    0 This week's deviation, first milking

DEV2   119    2    0 " " " " second

DEV3   119    3    0 " " " " third milking

DEV    119    4    0 " " " " daily total

 

Weekly milk weights (Averages for a specific week)

 

Item type 122 can provide previous weeks averages – the data that are used to show the graphs on the page 6, and also estimate lactation-to-date milk yields.  Similar to monthly test days, weeks can start at the beginning of the lactation, or count backwards from this week.

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

M120   122   18    0 Average on DIM 120 (week 18)

M90    122   13    0 Average on DIM 90 (week 13)

For “recent” weeks, the first operator must be zero.  The second is the week in the past.  For example:

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

WMLK2  122    0    1 Milk average last week

WMLK3  122    0    2 Milk average 2nd previous week

To find the highest weekly production, use this:

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

MPEAK  122  999    0 Peak weekly average
PKDIM   81   99    0 DIM at peak milk

Item type 123 also returns specific weeks averages, but now indexed from an item, such as weight at first breeding.

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

MATB1  123  BRED1  0 Milk at first breeding

 

Yield-to-date

 

Total lactation milk, or milk yield up to a certain day can also be calculated.

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

LTDM   124    0    0 Lactation to date milk yield

MLK60  124    0   12 Milk yield as of 60 days

Note that the days are divided by 5, so 60 days is entered as a 12.

 

Total component yield is also possible:

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

LTDF   124    1    0 Lactation to date fat yield

LTDP   124    2    0 Lactation to date ptn yield

FAT60  124    2   12 Fat yield as of 60 days

 

Item type 126 returns yield as of a certain item (a date, or days in milk)

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

MATB1  126  BRED1  0 Milk-to-date at first breeding

 

Projected yields and relative value

 

Item types 127 and 128 return the projected 305 day milk yields

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

M305   127    0    0 Projected 305 milk

ME305  128    0    0 Projected 305 milk - ME

Item type 129 return the relative value - % ME305/Herd average

Name  Type  Op1  Op2

====  ====  ===  ===

RELV   129    0    0 Relative value