Searching the Canadian Dairy Network

If you raise registered dairy cattle or want to research your new family cow, you should check out the Canadian Dairy Network. This amazing website is where you can search for the registrations and records of eight breeds of dairy cattle: Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Canadienne, Guernsey, Holstein, Jersey, Milking Shorthorn, and Norwegian Red. In this blog post, I'm going to guide you as you learn about searching for records, with my registered Jerseys as the models. 

First, visit the Canadian Dairy Network at www.cdn.ca and click on your language of choice:

​This will take you to the CDN's Welcome page, where you want to click on Animal Query on the right hand side of the screen:

This will take you to the CDN's Animal Query page, and this is where all your searches start:

There are four ways to search for an animal on the Canadian Dairy Network: by registration number, by name, by animal tattoo, or by semen code (for bulls).

Search by Registration Number

Our first search is with the registration number of one of my Jersey cows, Princess Sonja. First, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu, 'Canada' (the country where she was born) from the Country menu, and 'Female' from the Sex menu. Next, enter the registration number, 10219933, and click Submit Query. This brings you to a new page, the Genetic Evaluation Summary for BIRDSONG PRINCESS SONJA:

​Search by Name 

We are going to do a series of searches here, and our first one is a search with the name of one of my Jersey cows, Aster. First, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu and 'Female' from the Sex menu. Now enter the full name, BIRDSONG AUTUMN ASTER, and click Submit Query. This brings you to the Genetic Evaluation Summary page for Aster.

For our second search, we want to find all the cows registered with the Birdsong herd prefix. Again, you will choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu and 'Female' from the Sex menu, but instead of entering the full name of a cow you will enter BIRDSONG and click Submit Query. This will bring you to a Customized Query Results page listing all of the Jersey cows registered with the Birdsong herd prefix:

If you are searching for a bull, there are two option buttons to choose from: Name (Full or Start) and Short Name (Full or Partial). Today we are going to try both of these searches, with my favourite Jersey bull, Minister.

For our first search, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu again, but choose 'Male' from the Sex menu. Next, enter the full name of the bull, SELECT-SCOTT MINISTER, check that you've chosen the Name (Full or Start) option button, and then click Submit Query. With many bulls this will bring you to a Genetic Evaluation Summary page like our searches on Sonja and Aster, but with other bulls (like Minister) it will bring you to a Customized Query Results page like our search on the Birdsong herd prefix. The Customized Query Results page lists Minister twice, as SELECT-SCOTT MINISTER -ET, and again as SELECT-SCOTT MINISTER -ET CJCC. When a bull is listed twice like this, always click on the name without the CJCC listed after it, and this brings you to the Genetic Evaluation Summary page.

If you don't know the full name of the bull that you are looking for, you can search for his short name instead. For example, the full name of my favourite Jersey bull is SELECT-SCOTT MINISTER, but his short name is plain old Minister.

For our second search, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu and 'Male' from the Sex menu again. Next, enter the short name of the bull, Minister, check that you've chosen the Short Name (Full or Partial) option button, and then click Submit Query. If there is one bull registered with that short name this will bring you to the Genetic Evaluation Summary page, but since there are two Jersey bulls registered with the short name Minister this will bring you to the Customized Query Results page, where you can choose between SELECT-SCOTT MINISTER -ET and MAYFIELD PRIME MINISTER -ET.

Search by Animal Tattoo

We are going to do a series of searches here as well. For the first search, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu, followed by 'Female' from the Sex menu. Under Letters enter NKF and then click Search Query; this will bring you to a Customized Query Results page listing all of the Jersey cows registered with the tattoo letters NKF.

For the second search, enter NKF under Letters and Z under Year Letter, and then click Search Query. This will bring you to a Customized Query Results page listing all of the Jersey cows registered with the tattoo letters NKF, and born in 2012. (The letter Z was the designated year letter for 1990 and 2012, and in older herds you will find animals from both years listed.)

For the third search, enter NKF under Letters, 1 under Number, and Z under Year Letter, then click Search Query. This will bring you to a Genetic Evaluation Summary for the first Jersey calf born in 2012 (1Z), and registered with the tattoo letters NKF--and that is BIRDSONG SHIRLEY ROSE.

Search by Semen Code

Bulls that enter an artificial insemination program are assigned a three part semen code. For our first search, we will enter the semen code 200JE427. Enter 200 (the code for bulls from Semex) under AI Stud Number, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu, enter 427 under Sire Code, and click Search Query. This will bring you the Genetic Evaluation Summary page for SELECT-SCOTT MINISTER -ET.

Do you want to try that again? This time, we will enter the semen code 7JE1163. Enter 7 (the code for bulls from Select Sires) under AI Stud Number, choose 'Jersey' from the Breed menu again, enter 1163 under Sire Code, and click Search Query. This will bring you to the Genetic Evaluation Summary page for ALL LYNNS VALENTINO IRWIN -ET.

Tips and Tricks

When entering names, please note that you can enter a name as BIRDSONG PRINCESS GRACE, Birdsong Princess Grace, or birdsong princess grace, and you can hit the 'Enter' key on your keyboard instead of clicking on Search Query as well. And remember that the CDN searches are limited to the registered cattle of the eight dairy breeds I listed earlier.

Now that you are familiar with the Canadian Dairy Network's Animal Query page, you can start researching your family cow, or checking out the cows from your favourite dairy farm. Post your questions below, and I wish you many happy hours discovering the Canadian Dairy Network.