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What We Need to Know About Conformational and Managemental Traits: The Commercial Dairyman¹

Extension Dairyman, University of California, Davis 95616

ABSTRACT

There have been many systems designed to estimate a sire's genetic merit or his ability to transmit desirable genetic traits to his progeny. while animal breeding has often been called an art, it is now considered by most to ba a science. The dairyman must know the factors involved in inheritance, he must have the skills to apply them, and he must have patience to await fruition. Science has greatly reduced the risk of failure and the mediocrity that often resulted from earlier breeding practices of breeding the best to the best. Indeed, application of genetics has contributed greatly to achievements and progress in dairy cattle breeding. The rate of genetic process in the dairy cattle population has increased materially since 1937, the date of the first (USDA-DHIA) United States Department of Agriculture-Dairy Herd Improvement Sire Summary. Since the development of artificial insemination and, later, with the increased use of computers, the potential influence of fewer sires has been demonstrated.

¹ Paper presented in an industry symposium entitled "Conformational and Managemental Traits in Dairy Cattle Breeding" at the Sixty-Eight Annual Meeting of the American Dairy Science Association, Washington State University, Pullman, June 24-27, 1973.