Genetic

Selection

Perhaps the greatest myth concerning dairy cattle genetics is that farmers simply select for
cows that give more and more milk. You learned that was not true in our last discussion, but
which traits do we consider the most important, and how do we factor all of those different
traits at once?

Most genetic selection decisions are economically driven. This is not because dairy producers
view cows as mere economic production units, but because dairy farming is expensive. A farm
needs to generate more money than it spends to remain viable, just like any other business.

The primary revenue from dairy cows is milk – and more importantly, the components of milk
such as fat and protein. A cow’s progeny are an important source of revenue, as is beef
production.

On the expense side of the ledger, feed is the largest expense by a large margin. Heifer raising
costs, health costs, and breeding costs are also considered in our genetic selection formulas.

In order to determine which bulls will have the most economically efficient daughters, we
assign economic values to traits. Scientists from the United States Department of Agriculture
produce a selection index called the Lifetime Net Merit index. A sire’s Lifetime Net Merit
represents the expected revenue that his daughters will earn during their lifetime when
compared to the daughters of an average bull. This means that below average bulls will have a
negative value for Lifetime Net Merit. The 10 traits or categories that are considered in Lifetime
Net Merit are shown in the table.

Let’s walk through how economic merit is assigned to the first trait on our list – protein yield.

The value of a pound of protein is forecast based on prices over the last several years. This
value varies for different regions of the country based on how milk is used. In the southwest
United States, the vast majority of milk is made into cheese so protein is the most valuable
component of milk. In the southeast, a large proportion of milk is sold for the fluid market and
farmers aren’t really paid for their protein. When considering all of the different markets in the
United States, the value of a pound of protein is projected to be $2.48 in the coming years.
However, producing that additional protein requires the cow to eat approximately 90 cents
more feed and incur and additional 9 cents or so of health related expenses, resulting in $1.49
of net revenue per pound of protein. PTA protein is expressed on a per lactation basis and a
typical Holstein cow has 2.78 lactations, so a 1 pound increase is equivalent to $4.14 in the
USDA’s lifetime net merit index. Variations to Lifetime Net Merit are made for specific milk
markets or production systems. There is a lifetime cheese merit index which values PTA protein
at $5.86 per pound, a fluid merit index with PTA protein valued at $0, and a grazing merit index
with PTA protein valued at $3.92 per pound.

Let’s look back at the bull Toystory. Recall that his PTA for protein yield was +14 pounds. With
1-pound equivalent to $4.14, his daughters are expected to produce about $58 pounds more
protein during their life than that of a typical cow in most milk markets.

In this table are all of the traits that have a positive economic value in the lifetime net merit
index. As you can see, we favor cows that produce a lot protein, a lot of fat because we love ice
cream, cows that have a longer life span, that have proper udder conformation and sound feet
and legs, that are fertile, and that give birth to calves easily.

In this table are listed those traits that have a negative economic value. It might surprise you to
see milk with a slight negative economic value. Remember that we have given a positive
emphasis on milk’s two most valuable components – fat and protein. What’s left after we take
out the fat and protein? Mostly water, and farmers are charged for shipping that water from
their farm to the processing plant. We still expect milk yield to rise over time because milk is
positively correlated to protein and fat yield. What the negative weight will do is encourage
selection of milk with a higher concentration of fat and protein.

High levels of somatic cells in milk degrade cheese quality, shorten the grocery store shelf life of
milk, and are associated with udder infections, so somatic cell score is negatively weighted.
Finally, large cows eat more than small cows. The resulting increase in feed expense is more
than enough to offset increased beef revenue from larger cows. This results in a negative
weight on body size.

This chart shows the relative emphasis placed on each trait after adjusting for the different trait
scales. We place 44 percent of our emphasis on the yield of fat plus protein, and approximately
1 percent of our emphasis is directed toward lower milk yield. Longer herd-life is weighted
heavily with 19 percent of our emphasis on productive life. When we add the emphasis on
somatic cell score and udders together, we place a lot of emphasis, 15 percent, on mastitis
resistance. Successful reproduction is also weighted 15 percent and includes fertility traits and
calving ability.

Indexes help to simply our selection process quite a bit. Rather than having to decide which bull
is the best based on his ranking for 40 or more traits, we can rank them on 1 number. Economic
selection indexes also help to make sure we are emphasizing the traits that are most
economically important.

The economic merit indexes that I’ve discussed are not the only indexes available. Breed
associations and genetic companies have their own indexes that are very popular and fit what
their members most highly value. Breed associations give a lot of weight to what they think will
make their specific breed more competitive in the future. This chart highlights some of the
differences among the indexes. The breed associations tend to place a bit more emphasis on
protein yield and conformation with somewhat less on productive life and fat yield. Even
though there are multiple selection indexes, most tend to rank bulls pretty similarly with a few
exceptions.

In our next session, we will turn our attention toward how cows have changed over the last
half-century, and the factors that drive genetic change.