What are your choices when mating A.I. sires to the dairy cattle in your herd? Do you use one of the mating services? Focus on Net Merit Dollars (NM$)? Or simply want to get the cow pregnant because you know that nine months from now she will drop a calf and start all over again on the lactation curve?

Dairy producers make decisions on cows every day. And some of those decisions are based upon milk production. Normally, this might be a monthly DHI test or data coming off an electronic metering system. But how do you really know what that cow means to your bottom line?

Over the past five years, genomics has received a lot of publicity as a tool to help manage your herd’s genetics. Whether it is determining an overall breeding strategy for your herd or trying to find that high-end outlier that brings tens of thousands of dollars at a cattle sale, there is no doubt genomics has revolutionized the way producers look at dairy genetics.