Pen, Barns and Locations User Interface

Pen, Barns and Locations User Interface

This guide will go over creating and modifying pens, barns and locations. We will also show you some of the items for the different pen attributes that can be used in an animal report.

Getting to the Pen, Barn, Locations Setup page

From the main menu click on Setup then Farm Setup


You are now at the Pens and Barns setup.


By default, you are shown only pens but if you click on the "All" button you will see the hierarchy of pens, barns and sites (assuming you have setup one of each).


This is what the button does if you click on All. At any time you can expand or collapse the whole view by clicking the plus/minus button.

Creating Pen, Barn, Location

To create a new facility, click the "Add" Facilities button.


Enter the following required information:
  1. Pen/Barn Number
  2. Name (needs to be all lowercase and cannot have spaces. Underscores "_" can separate words. The name can also be the same as the number if you wish)
  3. Facility type (Pen, Barn, Location)
  4. Select the facility that the pen, barn or location is located at or in.
When finished press the Save button to save your changes.

Add multiple pens at once, by separating the pen numbers and pen names with periods. The number of items in the pen field must equal the number of items in the name field:
pen/barn number: 60.61.62.63
name: milk.milk.milk.hosp

As an example, create a new location, barn and a pen within that barn. "farm_2" is a new location and it is not located at or in any existing location.



barn (barn_1) located at farm_2.


pen (pen_5) located in barn_1 at farm_2.



Don't forget to make the pen you are adding active otherwise you will not be able to use it in events or reporting. Barns and locations do not need to be made active and you cannot edit any of the other attributes on a barn or location (except the name and number).


Modifying Pen, Barn, Location

This section will cover modifying existing pens, barns and locations. This includes changing attributes, and entering other information related to these items.

Changing and setting Attributes

Only pens can be set to have different pen attributes (pen types and several other types of information can be entered). These options are all yes/no. Any pen can have multiple attributes if needed or just a single attribute. Options for pens types are:
  • Hospital
  • Milk
  • Fresh
  • Close-up (dry)
  • Far-off (dry)
  • AI
  • Receiving (for receiving animals from other herds)
  • Pasture
Additional attributes that can be recorded for each pen are:
  • Number of headlocks
  • Bunk length
  • Number of rows (2, 3 or 4)
  • Bedding (Mattress, pack or sand)
  • Ventilation (Cross, lot, natural or tunnel)
  • Number of stalls
  • Stocking density
  • Active (yes/no)
To change any attribute about a specific pen double click on the row corresponding to that pen. Then select or enter the information for the option you would like to change. After each change the page will refresh with the update. This is the same process to change a Name, location or other information. The gif below will show many of these types of changes.



For each of the pen types (Fresh, milk, hospital, far off dry, close up dry, AI, receiving, pasture) we have 4 report items to report on the number of days in the given pen type. These items follow the following pattern consisting of three parts (font color denotes each part of the item). These items only calculate days in pen based on the current herd the animal is located at.
  • DI(PenType)pen(Value that denotes time in pen)
    • (No text after "pen") Current number of days in this pen type. Example: DIMilkpen
    • ("L" after "pen") Cumulative days in pen of this typpe during the current lactation. Example: DIMilkpenL
    • ("PL" after "pen") Cumulative days in pen of this type during the previous lactation. Example: DIMilkpenPL
    • ("Life" after "pen") Cumulative days in the pen of this type over the entire life of the animal. Example: DIMilkpeLife



There are also eight new animal report items which tell you if an animal is currently in a pen of this type. Below are all of the items. If an animal is in the pen the value will show 1. If the animal is not in the pen the value will show 0.


As an example, animal 8248 is currently only in a receiving pen.


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