PW Help

New as of 12/16/11 – Sam Gill full presentation that he did at the 2 September seminars is posted under Educational Info/Seminars and Presentations. I have also included here a section of his presentation that has to do with uploading your data from an Excel spreadsheet into Pedigree Wizard. I have not experimented with this process yet myself, but after I do I will put any notes here that I think might be a helpful addition to Sam’s slides. Sam Gill Import into Pedigree Wizard Instructions I have now done my first importing. It worked pretty slick, but I learned a few very important things that it does not tell you on Sam’s slides so I have included them here. Notes for text file data importing

New as of 7/11/11 DO NOT USE LETTER COMBOS – I just learned last week when I created a new ram ID that there are 15 2-letter combinations that you should never end an ID in. Here is the list:RT NT LT AG RL AM SN MS LS RR BK MM FK LM OO

I know LT means Lost Tag because that is the combo that I used. I do not know what the others mean. If you use one of these you will not get data back on the animal.

New as of 9/29/10 – I just learned yesterday from Stephen that if you want to know how many animals you have entered, how many you have tagged as culled and how many active, unique ewes you have inputted data on you can open your PW. Click on Breeding and Pedigree Display. Click on the Breeding tab. Make sure you have any one of this years animals selected. Then click on the Lamb % button on the far right of the screen in about the middle of the top to bottom direction. It also gives you other information that you may be interested in like your lambing %. I do not know if the animal raised number less the culled would be exactly the same as what is considered billable data or not. I don’t know if the program triggers number raised at 90 days or if it is the number of animals that have EPW weights turned in. When I learn the answer, I will let you know.

New as of 9/24/10 – We are happy to announce the Sheep Production Forums has added a special bulletin board for people interested in NSIP and Lambplan. This is a place you can go to learn more about NSIP and Lambplan. It is also a place you can post questions on using Pedigree Wizard and how to use the data that is returned. Several producers that have experience with Lambplan and NSIP have agreed to monitor the bulletin board and help answer questions. Please visit this site frequently. It will hopefully become a very useful tool for your sheep production.

New as of 9/20/10 – I learned that I told people incorrectly about the data billing of $2 per head for all except animals marked as culled or commercial. I told people that you needed to mark their “status” to indicate this. That is wrong. If you read the enrollment form that you signed when you sent in your money it refers to a section 4.14 in the Quality Assurance Manual. In there it tells you that you need to put a CU or a CO in the tag number to indicate the culls and commercial animals. The CO & CU belong in the 11 & 12 digit location. This is where Lambplan would want us to have a 10 for this year. It is also where a lot of us US breeders are putting letters to indicate our flocks. CO & CU should not be used for anything besides this cull & commercial reason. This does mean that you would have to do a retag with the CO or CU at the time that you enter a measurement for over 90 days if you do not want to be billed for that animal. (9/29/10 extra info: If you turn in a weaning weight on an animal that is 90 days of age, it will trigger the data fee charge on that animal unless you have the CO or CU in the tag. It is not just when you turn in EPW weights.)

Dave Notter has sent spreadsheet to each breed coordinator that gives the flock eartag number, the old NSIP number and the new Lambplan ID. The sheep’s Lambplan number will coincide with either your flock tag or the old NSIP number. If anyone wants a copy of your sheep, let your breed coordinator know. One suggestion I have is that you could make an Excel spreadsheet that shows only 2 columns: the flock tag numbers you use for your current ewes and rams and then have a column with their Lambplan ID next to it so you can have it at your side when you are entering data.

This is from an email that I received from Dave Notter:
“My take on this is that breeders should not change a tag unless they are quite sure the animal appears ONLY in their own flock. My guidelines might be:
1) if an animal ID contains a LAMBPLAN flock code that is not yours, DO NOT CHANGE;
2) If the animal was born in your flock, only make a change to the tag if you are sure that the animal was not sold to, or used in, another NSIP flock. Or contact the other flocks involved to ENSURE a global change.”
Dave also just sent me this about changing IDs that you may want to read in addition to or instead of what I have written here.GUIDELINES FOR CHANGING LAMBPLAN ID NUMBERS

Retagging (changing the assigned Lambplan number):
Something like a typo error of a newborn lamb that you had just entered and already saved should not cause a problem because it has not left your database.

A ewe self raised and still in your flock and you have never sold a ram or ewe lamb out of her to another NSIP breeder should not cause a problem

A ewe that you have sold offspring from and you retag her will cause that offspring to loose data. ie: West Cyclone sold a ram to Uncompahgre. If West Cyclone decided to retag the mom, it will cut the link to Bills new ram giving it zeros for EPDs on the dam side.

If you have a ram that you purchased from somewhere else, his ID is and needs to stay with his ID having the original flock breeders ID in that rams ID.

We have posted Pedigree Wizard instructions, shortcuts and answers to frequently asked questions on this page. There are several links for you to choose from.

These next two links are what Jerry and I have learned through our own process plus things that I have learned from helping and talking to others that were having trouble. I hope this will help.
West Cyclone Farm Pedigree Wizard Notes
West Cyclone Farm Pedigree Wizard Data Back Notes
I have just written up a few extra notes which are my attempt to help people who are totally new to NSIP and may need some extra information on how to start from scratch.
West Cyclone Notes for Flocks New to NSIP

Here are 3 PDFs from the Montana State University which will provide some shortcuts, etc that they have learned to Pedigree Wizard. There are 3 because the file was originally to large for me to upload to the site.
MT 1_PW_Notes_1_0
MT 2_PW_Notes_1_0
MT 3_PW_Notes_1_0