Is Off-Target Performance a Real Problem?

How You Can Help Your Clients Avoid Being Tricked

Abstract

The veterinary profession continues to make greater use of production databases in serving the dairy industry. Increasingly sophisticated database management systems allow producers and practitioners to consider the biological, statistical, and economic implications of management interventions. Frequency distributions and simple descriptive statistics can be very helpful in understanding patterns that underlie commonly used measures of dairy herd productivity.

Once underlying patterns are understood, statistics can be used to set feasible production targets and confidence intervals to accommodate the variability inherent in biology. This is particularly appropriate for smaller herds or when one wishes to analyze performance over short time periods. Confidence intervals and interference levels can be adjusted to lessen the chances of erroneous conclusions being drawn when sample sizes are small. Consequences of drawing the wrong conclusions are implementing changes when no intervention is warranted, or failing to act quickly enough in response to falling productivity.

Practicing veterinarians can apply these simple-to-use practical techniques which help avoid the trap of confusing normal variation with real changes in productivity.