Determining the prevalence of the early onset muscle weakness syndrome in your herd can aid in management decisions and avoid costly matings.

Doug Blair shares his knowledge of pedigrees in his book containing information about 117 years of North American Grand Champions.

While it’s known that improving a cow’s genetics can improve animal productivity, recent research shows that rumen genetics can be a more effective predictor of cow traits, including health and productivity. Cornell Kasbergen of Rancho Teresita Dairy and Brooke Anderson of Native Microbials discuss how feeding native rumen microbes are impacting a commercial dairy herd.

“No animal is perfect; every animal has multiple genetic defects in it. So do we, all of us have them,” Matt McClure of ABS Global stated during the Undesirable Genetic Factors and Genomics’ Role in Discovery panel discussion, held during the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) annual meeting.

If you were in need of replacements, would you be excited to buy your heifers?

“Can we address environmental concerns and meet consumer preferences by breeding more environmentally friendly cows?” So far, the answer is “yes.”

A dairy producer’s dream and goal is a low-maintenance herd with minimized disease instances, great fertility and longevity. Where can they achieve these results?

The U.S. has high-quality data pipelines for the flow of production, fertility and health records, but there is not currently a pipeline of hoof health information. As an essential first step, CDCB, the University of Minnesota (UMN) and several collaborators are working to consistently identify and record hoof health traits.

A healthier herd. It’s a simple-sounding concept that’s proven difficult in practice. Finding genetics that resist routine pathogens across environments on dairy farms has been a focus of the industry over the last 10 years