Patent ID: 8087381

Claim:
A method of using a computer for calculating a transition monitor value for a milk-producing animal at a given time period in a current lactation so as to enable its use in evaluating and optimally managing a health and a productivity of the milk-producing animal, the method comprising using said computer to perform the following steps: a) accessibly storing an animal data set comprising an amount of milk produced in a previous lactation period, a current number of days in milk at a test day, and an actual amount of milk produced in a current lactation period; b) accessibly storing a parameters data set comprising a regression coefficient intercept, a regression coefficient associated with the amount of milk produced in the previous lactation period, and a regression coefficient associated with the current number of days in milk; c) calculating an expected amount of milk produced by the milk-producing animal in the current lactation period by summing the regression coefficient intercept, the regression coefficient associated with the amount of milk produced in the previous lactation period multiplied by the amount of milk produced in the previous lactation period and the regression coefficient associated with the current number of days in milk multiplied by the current number of days in milk; d) calculating a transition monitor value by subtracting the expected amount of milk produced from the actual amount of milk produced in the current lactation period; e) accessibly storing the transition monitor value for the milk-producing animal; and f) outputting the transition monitor value for use in evaluating and optimizing the health and the productivity of the milk-producing animal; whereby a method is provided for calculating the expected amount of milk the milk-producing animal will produce in the current lactation period based on actual performance of the milk-producing animal in the previous lactation period and on a current state for use in calculating the transition monitor value indicative of a transition performance of the milk producing animal and usable for evaluating and optimizing the health and productivity of the milk-producing animal.