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The Element of Surprise in Dairy Herd Improvement Association Testing

Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

ABSTRACT

Monthly test dates of 420 Massachusetts Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA) herds in 1965 and 412 herds in 1966 were used to determine how well the surprise element of DHIA testing was maintained. Thirty-nine DHIA supervisors, 24 full-time and 15 part-time, tested these herds. Supervisor performance was evaluated for three categories of deficiencies: testing a herd repeatedly on the same date of the month; testing a herd repeatedly on the same day of the week; following the same sequence of herd tests month after month.

The percentages of herds involved in one or more deficiencies were 52.6% in 1965 and 49.8% in 1966. The most frequent deficiency was repeating the same sequence of herds. The DHIA supervisors appeared to be the primary cause of the deficiencies. Deficiencies on Dairy Herd Improvement Registry (DHIR) herds and on high-producing herds were no more frequent than expected by chance according to Chi-square tests. The DHIA supervisors that ranked highest according to performance standards currently used, ranked almost uniformly among the worst in this study. Better training of supervisors in these aspects of performance is clearly needed.

¹ Present address: Dairy Herd Improvement, Animal Husbandry Research Division, National Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, Maryland.