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Dairy Cattle Breeding

Importance of Traits Other than Milk Production in a Breeding Program

Dairy Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing

ABSTRACT

Dairy cattle breeding has been defined as the process of selecting the parents of the next generation. In practice, we try to let those animals having the highest milk production have many offspring, and those with low production have few or none. Several things seem to be very obvious from this definition. Unless we can rank cows for production with some degree of accuracy, it seems useless to practice selection. On the other hand, it would accomplish little to save offspring from only the highest producers if they did not tend to be like the parents. If, for any reason, the average of the population saved did not exceed the average of those culled, selection would not be effective. Finally, the frequency of selection would influence annual progress.

All of the foregoing statements appear straightforward and quite simple. Even more simple would be the observation that regardless of how accurately parents are chosen, or how intensely selected, unless these parents have offspring, selection would be powerless.