In recent years, many U.S. producers have adopted use of a custom index. This index is used for sire selection or sorting females for culling or strategic breeding programs. These custom indexes are used in place of standard selection indexes such as Net Merit (NM$), Cheese Merit or breed-specific indexes (TPI, JPI, etc.).

It is not uncommon for a producer to state, “I have been putting high emphasis on genetics within my herd, but the cows just don’t seem to be at the performance level they should be.”