Changes to Editing System (February 2007)
Consistency in reporting abortions
By George Wiggans and Lillian Bacheller
Consistency in reporting lactations that end with an abortion and subsequent lactations that start with an abortion now is forced. If a calf is reported from a lactation that is designated as starting with an abortion, the abortion indicator for that lactation is removed as well as the "terminated with an abortion"; code for the previous lactation. If consecutive lactations have inconsistent abortion reporting and the last reported breeding is approximately 280 days before the current calving, the abortion indicator is removed. The more comprehensive checking for abortion codes was implemented to prevent lactation records from being excluded from evaluations because of incorrectly being coded as starting with an abortion.
Designation of breedings with sexed semen
By George Wiggans, Lillian Bacheller, and Melvin Kuhn
Because of commercialization of techniques that can change the sex ratio of semen, breedings with such semen now are identified in the Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory database. The dairy records processing centers (DRPCs) that provide information on service sire have agreed to report the National Association of Animal Breeders code (identification type = N, byte 150) as the bull's identification number in format 5 (reproductive record). If the semen-processing organization number (bytes 158–160) is 507, 509, 514, or 529, the code for type of reproductive event (byte 138) is changed from A (artificial insemination) to G (artificial-insemination breeding with gender-selected semen) for storage in the database. Although DRPCs can directly report G in format 5, such reporting is not expected. Because the sex-sorting process affects semen fertility, breedings with sexed semen now are excluded from bull fertility (estimated relative conception rate) evaluation. Some historical data were reprocessed to identify more breedings with sexed semen.