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Milk Yield, Sire Selection Profitability, and Selection Error Costs¹

Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843

ABSTRACT

Objectives were to determine effect of herd milk yield on profitability of sire selection and cost of selection errors by ignoring this information. Net present values of semen were calculated for alternative herd averages for milk, selection policies, conception rates to first service, and generations of descendants in the financial planning horizon for real interest of 3%. Predicted Differences for milk, fat, and type score and retail semen prices were for the 440 AI Holstein sires active and available for purchase after the July 1985 USDA Sire Summary. Herd averages for milk yield were low (<5500 kg), average (6500 to 6999 kg), and high (>9499 kg). Optimal sires for low yield herds were 1.1 to 1.6 SD more profitable when used in average yield herds and they were 3.0 to 4.5 SD more profitable when used in herds with highest average milk. Cost of sire selection errors was inconsequential when information about herd average milk yield for either policy was ignored. However, the 20 optimal sires selected either for high or low herds but used instead in the opposite environment were .5 SD less profitable than correct choices for the 3 to 1 selection policy. Ten of the 20 most profitable bulls differed between these herd situations. Thus, accurate use of herd average milk yield information can reduce the cost of sire selection errors for selection policies including type score.

¹ Technical article 22301 of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, College Station 77843. Project 2491, a contributing project to Southern Regional Project S49, Genetic Methods of Improving Dairy Cattle for the South.

² Present address: Department of Animal Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.

³ Department of Agricultural Economics.