A herdbook for a breed and a farm
A herdbook for any breed
The system breed societies use to open and keep herdbooks. Animal records are collected so that three parties accept them at once: the national registry, the buyer, and international exchange on the ICAR standard.
Built on the industry standard. Exchange follows ICAR ADE — the worldwide standard for animal data exchange, maintained by ICAR, whose members are recording organisations across five continents. Every response is validated against 77 of the standard’s schemas on each run, so the same data reads here and in any country without reshaping it for anyone. What it is checked against →
international exchange collections
See the analysis →data validation rules
See the analysis →ICAR Guidelines sections mapped
See the analysis →international animal ID format
See the analysis →Three sets of books, not one
A farm keeps three different records, and confusing them is the usual trouble. This system covers the third — the one that is most often missing entirely.
Reporting to the state
Mandatory forms, deadlines, registry keys. Like a tax return: it has to be filed, but it does not help you decide anything.
Herd management
Who calved, who to inseminate, who to treat. Herd management software does this, and does it well.
The economics of a cow
Who to keep, who to sell, which bull to breed from. No forms and no deadlines here — only numbers and comparison. That is what this system is for.
How it is calculated →What usually gets in the way
Herd data lives in spreadsheets and notebooks, the association keeps its herdbook in a separate file, and the state registry demands its own forms. The same facts get entered three times and diverge three ways. The error surfaces when a pedigree certificate is issued — too late to fix.
How it is used
A short recording of the working screens: the animal record, search across the book, issuing a document.
Rank among all, not among your own
The best heifer in a herd is first out of forty. Forty-seventh out of twenty thousand is a different price and a different conversation with a buyer. That number cannot be computed alone: it takes every herd at once — and that is what makes an association worth joining rather than merely required.
What the system does
Herdbook
Animal registration, pedigrees analysed nine generations deep, DNA parentage verification, issuing of pedigree certificates.
Breeding value and index profiles
Weights are configurable: one profile for the farm, another for the association, with a versioned comparison base stored alongside every result. A national index, once published, joins as one more profile — no rebuild of the book.
Relationship and mating
Inbreeding coefficients from the pedigree, bull selection that accounts for relationship, and a warning about close kinship before insemination. For a small population this matters more than extra milk.
Recording and conformation
Test days with fat, protein and somatic cells; linear conformation with classifier and date. These are inputs for lactation, class and index — day-to-day herd management stays with farm software.
Data validation
More than fifty rules look for contradictions: a sire younger than its offspring, insemination before calving, litter counts that disagree with the birth type.
Registry and standard exchange
Export and return-file import in the registry’s own templates, plus the ICAR ADE standard: eleven collections and both exchange styles — per-location queries and a changes feed.
A turnkey herdbook for a breed that has none
Breeds come from the national registry: 55 dairy breeds, of which 18 are ready to open a book — fields, blood share against the improving breed and the calculations are in place — and one book is already running. 36 of those 55 have no international code at all: they are absent from the Interbull list because they take no part in world semen trade. Those are the breeds that need a book most, and what matters there is not extra milk but relationship control, which is already in place.
Which breeds the book can keep →What happens to the data
if it does not add up, it goes back to the farm
one record, many destinations
Records are entered once. The system then routes them to each destination and validates them on the way.
An error surfaces before a pedigree certificate is issued, not after.
What it looks like inside
The animal record: who she is, where she comes from, what she yields. Registry exports, the pedigree certificate and the ranking are all built from here.
Field names and units are the real ones; the values are shown as an example.
What is inside the book
Sections of a working herdbook rather than a list of merits. Each one opens with a click.
Animal record
Origin, production, events, documents and media on one page, with an edit history for every field.
Read more →Pedigree from every source
Assembled from every source at once, with DNA parentage verification and contradictions flagged.
Read more →Lactations and test days
Yield, fat, protein, somatic cells; the 305-day lactation is computed from test days, not typed in.
Read more →Conformation
Linear traits, composite scores, overall class. Every record keeps its classifier and date.
Read more →Breeding value
Weight profiles, reliability per trait, rank across the whole book and the expected change per generation.
Read more →Mating and inbreeding
Relationship coefficients from the pedigree, bull selection that avoids close kinship, a culling list.
Read more →Herd reports
Herd structure, reproduction, age at first calving, milk quality — with the animals behind every number.
Read more →Data quality
More than fifty rules surface contradictions before a record reaches a registry or a certificate.
Read more →Documents
Pedigree certificates and zootechnical statements with a verifiable code; an issued document cannot be altered.
Read more →Exports and exchange
Twenty registry templates with return-file import, ICAR ADE, and a REST interface for your own integration.
Read more →Access and roles
A farm sees its own, the association sees the whole book, a buyer gets pinpoint access to one animal.
Read more →Submissions and verification
Uploaded batches go through parsing, validation and the association’s sign-off; every record shows its trust level.
Read more →What the system does not do
It does not run the farm
Rations, veterinary treatment, the day’s work list — that is herd management software. We take data from it rather than replace it.
It is not a laboratory
DNA tests and milk analyses are done by labs. The book stores the result, its source and its date — and makes sure it does not drift apart from the animal record.
It does not replace a national index
We have no single “correct” formula: an index is a weight profile on a versioned base. A national index, once published, becomes one more profile over the same traceable data.
Who it is for
Farms
Those running a dairy herd: the economics of each cow, filing to the registry without double entry, and an animal’s standing across the whole population rather than the barn. It does not replace farm management software and does not try to.
Economic index →Associations and breed societies
Those who need a herdbook rather than a spreadsheet: validation, access rights, record verification, document issuing and an index profile of their own. A book can be opened for any breed — including a small local one that has none at all.
Data validation →The system is running
The Holstein Cattle Breeders’ Association keeps its herdbook on it: animal registration, pedigrees, milk recording, conformation assessment, exchange with the state registry. The book is open — you can see how it works before any conversation about implementation.
Why this work
A breed cannot be conserved while there are no records of it. Of the 55 dairy breeds in the registry, 36 have no international code at all: they take no part in world semen trade and have no herdbook of their own either. Until there is one, conservation is a word: nobody can see the population size, the kinship, or who descends from whom. Our part is to make opening a book a matter of a week rather than five years — the reference lists are wired, the fields are ready, blood share and relationship are computed, registry exports work. What is needed next is farm data and an organisation willing to keep the book.
Which breeds the book can keep →Getting started
Tell us your country, the size of your herd and how you keep records today. We will show the system on demonstration data and discuss what an implementation would take.
Write to us