While the demo herd is fun to play with, you obviously want your own cows to look at.
To get your herd into Bovy:
First, contact your DHI to see if they support automatically sending your DNLs to us. If that's enabled, and you sign up with your DHI for the service, you don't have to do anything, your Bovy herd will be updated automatically every time you test.
If you are not on a partner DHI, but are on some DHI, you can still get your cows into Bovy. If you are being processed through Dairy One, or you use DairyComp 305, you probably are receiving a "DNL" file - your herdcode.DNL for example "35123456.DNL".
Currently, to get cows into Bovy, you need to send us a DNL file. A DNL file contains a snapshot of your herd, it is the monthly test day results file.
There are a couple ways to send your data to use in Bovy.
1. On a desktop PC, you can upload your DNL (or BOV file) by going to this link :
Enter your name and email, then click the Upload button and you can select your DNL file from your computer.
If you are on a partner DHI, they may have to set you up before your herd is processed, which might take an hour or so, possibly more on weekends.
2. The other way to send your DNL is to just email it to us - Using your the same email account you used to register, send the file as an attachment to
All DHIs in the US and Canada can create DNL files, and if you use DairyComp or other software , you are getting one every time you test. It is named HERDCODE.DNL - for example if your herd code is 24123456, the DNL file is named 24123456.DNL.
If you are not on DHI, some onfarm software may be also able to create DNL files. Check with your vendor to see if that is possible with your software. That file is how you Feed Bovy.
The hungry bots running in the nextCow cloud will see that DNL, create a BovyHerd, and make it available to you to use with Bovy.
Within 15 minutes or so your herd will be ready to download. Click the Barn button on the main Bovy screen , then click the Update button to update your herd, and you'll see your herd. Click it and you're good to go with your own cows.
Legal Stuff
When you send a DNL to nextCow, we assume you it is your dairy and you own the data, and have the necessary permission.
This is implied when you send us the DNL.
Over time, as relationships are formed with the DHIs, you must sign up with your DHI to be able to have your data in Bovy.