Abstract
Benchmarking systems have been used for improvement of the management of business. In livestock production fields, the benchmarking is used for pig production management. This system will be also improved the herd health management in dairy farms with considering by the farmer. This study was investigated to confirm whether dairy farm data stored were useful for making benchmark focusing on herd health management. Data of 199 dairy farms were obtained from a local agricultural cooperative association in eastern Hokkaido. Total more than 20000 dairy cattle were kept in these farms. Nine indexes of herd health in dairy farms were set in three fields, which were disease, reproduction and milk production. The median was set as representative values, since these data showed nonparametric distribution. The values of some indexes were affected by the housing system or herd scale of dairy farms. This study showed that the benchmarks of herd health management in dairy farms were possible to set using existing dairy farm data in consideration of feeding system.
