Here are a few tips and reminders for data entry and reporting during the busy calving period.  Some of the topics below are for pre-calving checks/data entry, and others recommend routine checks to help ensure your official herd list keeps up-to-date and accurate while calves are being registered.
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Ensure you have the correct list of Dams in your FarmWizard herd.  Running the Herd Manager > APHIS/BCMS/SCOT Interface > Differences can be helpful to show any animals on BCMS/APHIS that are not on FarmWizard, and vice-versa.  For example, this could show any dry cows that need to re-added to the herd for calving, or newly purchased animals that need to be added.

Herds reporting to APHIS in Northern Ireland:
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To move animals into your herd, go to Herd Manager > APHIS Interface > Movements.  If the animals have previously been in your herd, tick “Include animals moved into herd before” and select the appropriate date range to cover the movement period.  

Click the“Check for movements in” button to display any animals found on APHIS. Select the required animals in the list and then click the button at the bottom of the page to add to FarmWizard.

​Herds reporting to BCMS and ScotEID
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If the cows have previously been in your herd, but were moved "off" to another BCMS/ScotEID holding for the dry period, you can re-add them via Herd Manager > Re-add animal
Select the required animals from the list, pick the date of the return “on” movement and fill in the name of the source holding.  If you want to report the movement to BCMS, tick the box before clicking the button to add the selected animals to the herd.

For BCMS herds:

If you have purchased a number of cows/heifers that are not yet on FarmWizard, but have already been reported to BCMS/ScotEID as moved “on” to the birth holding, go to Herd Manager > BCMS Interface > Movements and click on the “Check for movements in” button.  After a few seconds, a list of animals will display.  Fill in the movement details and click the button at the bottom of the page to add the animals to your FarmWizard herd.

You can also add new cows to FarmWizard via the Herd Manager > BCMS Interface > Passport Scanning screen, or Herd Manager > Add Animal

When you have updated your herd list, remember to assign freeze brand numbers and add the animals to the Breed Cycle Manager in FarmWizard
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Go to Herd Manager > Add Tags

Click the “Download…” button to connect to APHIS and download your available calf tags
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Just a reminder that tags can no longer be downloaded from the "CTS Online" website.  You can generate a new batch of tags via Herd Manager > Add Tags

To generate a batch of new tags that simply “follows on” from the last tag in the "available" list, or the last allocated tag in the herd (if your available list is empty), first enter the number of purchased tags in the box and then click the button “Generate Tags for BCMS”.

Alternatively, click “Advanced” if you want to add a separate sequence of tags that does not follow on from the last tag. You will need to enter the full “UK” 12 digit number of the first tag in the sequence(Upper case UK).

You can watch a video (includes audio) by clicking on the link below:
​https://youtu.be/dPerb0porsY
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If you are using “Lifetime” EID tags (with the official “UK” tag as the visible number), please ask your supplier for the “Tag Bucket” file and email it to support@farmwizard.com as an attachment, including your FarmWizard account Username and herd name, and we will add it to your available tag list.

If you have any remnants of old tag batches that you want to remove, go to Herd Manager > Add Tags.  Highlight the required tags in the list by clicking and dragging, and then click “Deleted Selected Tags from list”.

When AI Services and PD Scans have been recorded, the name of the service sire will be selected as the default “Sire Name” on the Birth screen (for the “Straw” Paternity Type). 

To ensure this functionality works correctly, you should ensure that all the Semen Stock batches which were used for the previous Service season are marked as “In Use”.  To check this, go to Dairy Manager > List Semen Stocks. The right-hand column will show whether a sire is currently in use (below).
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To amend an “In Use” status, click “Select” in the left-hand column, and then the button “Change if used” to the right side of the screen to amend this setting.
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If you want to include the Sire identifier on the calf passport, please ensure that the “National ID” box is filled in for each AI Sire.  The sire identifier must be no more than 14 characters, and will usually be the official ear tag number of the sire.  

To add the sire identifier, go to Dairy Manager > List Semen Stocks and select the required sire name in the list. On the right-hand side of your screen, click the “Update Stock” button, enter the sire identifier in the National ID box and then click the “Update” button to save the changes.
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Process and routine checks

Births can be entered as a batch (go to Home > Quick Links > Record Birth or Herd Manager > Add Birth)

You can also record single births from Herd Manager > List Herd > click “Birth” button. This method must be used for recording twin births.

Before saving a Birth please ensure that:

After saving a new Birth event:

Go to Herd Manager > APHIS / BCMS / SCOT Interface > Registrations and check that each birth is displayed on the pending list with the correct details. The details can be checked/amended by clicking on the ear tag number of the calf.

If you realise a mistake has been made, or you no longer wish to register the birth, proceed as follows:

First, remove the birth from the pending registration list by going to Herd Manager > APHIS/BCMS/SCOT Interface > Registrations. This action will prevent the birth being sent to APHIS/BCMS, but the calf details and the dam calving event will remain on FarmWizard.  Removing the birth from the pending list should be done as soon as possible and before the FarmWizard auto-submission takes place at 10:00 am each morning.
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Second, you should contact the Farm Success Team to request removal of the incorrect cow and calf records, providing the full details of both dam and calf. Please also advise us if you need the calf tag adding back onto the available list.
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We strongly recommended that you login to the main FarmWizard website both before (to check the details), and after the FarmWizard APHIS/BCMS/SCOT auto-submission time (10:00 am each morning).  If any error messages are returned from the Government system, they can only be viewed on the main FarmWizard website.
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It’s a good idea to run the Herd Manager > APHIS/BCMS/SCOT Interface > Differences report every few days during the calving season.  This will help you to check that your FarmWizard herd list reconciles fully with APHIS or BCMS.

This would show whether there were any calves on FarmWizard that had not been successfully registered on the APHIS/BCMS system; for example, this could occur if the "Register" tick box was mistakenly de-selected on the Birth recording screen.
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