As an agricultural consultant, you work with producers who are constantly overwhelmed with information, numbers and data. The purpose of this course is to assist you in identifying the important data on DHIA herd reports and provide guidance in evaluation and interpretation of the data to help your clients make management decisions to improve herd performance and ultimately, the profitability of their dairy businesses.

Dairy Record Analysis Training is a self paced course delivered via the Web. The course is made up of five separate lessons on the topics of production, reproduction, udder health, and, culling and replacements. Each lesson contains a series of instructional web pages and opportunities to test your knowledge of the material. You will be able to download three different herd reports during this course---one to introduce you to the reports and their data, a second herd report that you will use to test your knowledge, and a final herd report you will use to create a final narrative assessment. Depending on your experience it should take 10 to 20 hours to complete the course.

What makes this course special is the opportunity to learn how to analyze data, and in addition, to transform that information into concrete recommendations that will improve herd performance and profitability. Through the process of creating a narrative analysis of a herd, and through the feedback offered by the instructors, you will gain valuable knowledge and experience that can be put to immediate use in the field.

Registration for this course is currently closed and will resume in early fall 2008. If you would like to receive notification when registration resumes, please send an email to Karen Vines - kvines@psu.edu.