| dc.description.abstract | This research is commissioned by CRV and the goal is to map the use of the animal health module from VeeManager by farmers. In this research two main questions are answered. The first main question is: “How much does the recorded data match the real happenings.’. The second main question is:”Are there motivations that influence the recording of data by the farmer.”
The answered are looked for with an interview with 28 farmers, selected from 2 groups. The first group were participants to a prior interview (I0015). The second group were participants to a pilot study. The interview was based on 24 questions, divided into questions about general farm features, questions about the use of the animal health module and questions about features of data recording.
The most important conclusions of the research are that there are only a limited number of farmers who use the animal health module. The recorded data are correct, but usually not complete. The category udder/teats is the most correct and complete category of all categories. 81% of the farmers say that they use the animal health module to meet the KKM demandings. This is the most important reason for the farmers to always record all the diseases/treatments in the category udder/teats.
There are a few parameters that give an indication of the correctness of the data. At first, recordings in other categories than udder/teats mean accurate recordings in the category udder/teats. The other way around, if there is data recorded in the category udder/teats, than that doesn’t mean that there is accurate data recording in other categories. A second parameter is the frequency of data recording in the animal health module. If farmers record data daily, there animal health data is more accurate than farmers who record less frequently. The use of a PDA is the third parameter. The data of farmers who use a PDA, is significantly more accurate than the data of farmers who record there animal health data in another way. 67% of the farmers who use a PDA record their data daily.
Many farmers want extra help and support for the use of the animal health module, because they can’t use the module optimally. The information from CRV about the animal health module is not sufficient and the lack of knowledge is causing unnecessary problems for the farmers. The lack of knowledge also makes the animal health module user-unfriendly. The computer programme on its own is assessed as easy to work with. But the results show that the animal health module can be improved. For example, overview- and attentions lists are too extensive and an apart category for dry cow treatment is desired. Overall, the most important advice is to set up good education and support for the farmers so that they can learn how to use the animal health programme optimally. | |
