First of all, don’t panic, the issues that these text messages relate to are minor and very simple to rectify. There are many reasons why you may have a received a text from us (outlined below).

  1. The calf is registered with an incorrect Stockbull tag number.

2 scenarios:

a) The farmer registered the calf with a Stockbull tag number beginning in ‘IE’ however, the correct tag number actually begins in ‘372’. A very common mistake that frequently occurs as there are still many bulls that have an ‘IE’ number and old habits die hard.

b) The tag number supplied may contain a typo i.e. an extra digit, a digit less or incorrect digit. An easy mistake to make and even easier to fix at any stage.

  1. The AI code of the registered is missing the breed letters.

For example, the calf registered below contained sire details ‘2248’ instead of ‘FR2248’. It is impossible for the system to identify the correct breed associated with ‘2248’.

  1. The Stockbull freezebrand is unrecognisable.

On entering a herd, a Stockbull is automatically given a freezebrand number, generally consisting of the breed code i.e. HE for Hereford followed by the last 3 digits of the tag number. In the example below, the calf was registered to ‘HE0294’ and the system was unable to recognise that this related to the Stockbull as it did not match the Stockbull freezebrand.

To modify an animal’s jumbo/freezebrand, go to ‘Record Events’ -> ‘Jumbo / Freezebrand.

  1. The breed that the calf was registered to, does not match the breed of the bull.

For example, if the sire breed on the blue card is ‘FR’ and the Stockbull tag number or AI code used when registering the calf, relates to a different breed, the system cannot process the sire details correctly.

To update/correct sire details, please follow these steps:

  1. Log-in to HerdPlus with your username (Herd Number) and password. If you have forgotten your password, simply click on the ‘Forgot your password?’ option for further instruction.

  1. Go to ‘Record Events’ and select ‘Missing Sire’.

3. Any animals that are missing sire details or require clarification will be listed here. To update/correct the sire details, just enter the correct sire details into the box labelled ‘Sire’.

  1. Once happy with the updated information, don’t forget to press ‘Save Changes’.

  1. For instances 1-3 listed above, you can easily correct the sire issue by entering in the correct information and this will automatically update on the system.
  1. To deal with instance 4, you may need to update the animal’s blue card to reflect the correct information. This can be done through your local DVO.

If you have any queries, please contract the HerdPlus office on 023 8820452 or [email protected]