Revised Dairy herd testing standard

17 July 2015

Revised Dairy herd testing standard

A revised dairy herd testing standard will help herd testers meet the objectives of the Dairy Industry Herd Testing Regulations.

The Dairy Industry (Herd Testing and New Zealand Dairy Core Database) Regulations 2001 require all herd testers to be certified and to submit the minimum data set required to characterise the performance of the national bovine dairy herd.

NZS 8100:2015 Dairy herd testing simplifies the provisions for farming businesses with multiple herds and farm dairies in similar environments, to allow the herds to be tested on the same day or on different days, as long as all cows are tested within an 8-day ‘herd test phase’.

The standard has been reorganised to include generic requirements for herd testing, requirements under the current data collection processes, and requirements for automated milk recording devices. This will enable further data collection methods to be easily included as the standard is amended in future.

The revision has also enabled clarifications of the requirement for ear tags to be linked to unique animal identifiers recorded on the core database, and allowed for compatibility with the new National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) provisions.

By providing flexibility and clear requirements for herd testing, this standard will maintain and ensure the ongoing contribution of quality data to the dairy industry-good database. Facilitating herd performance recording will enable research and animal evaluation of the genetic productive potential of the national herd and its members, for the benefit of all New Zealand dairy farmers.

NZS 8100:2015 Dairy herd testing supersedes NZS 8100:2007. It can be purchased from Standards New Zealand on its websitewww.standards.co.nz

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