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January 2010 elite cow and heifer statistics

Determination of elite or high-ranking grade status was based on a two-stage screening procedure. The first-stage screening criteria for eligibility were:

  • Management groups included lactations of at least three other cows when averaged across a cow's lactations.
  • Last calving was within 2 years and 3 months of current evaluation date.
  • Last record was either in progress (code R) or had a termination code of 0 (blank), 1, 2, or 8.
  • First lactation was not predominantly owner-sampler type of test.
  • Reliability of milk evaluation was at least 30%.
OR
  • The animal includes genomic evaluation information

Summary information for eligible (those passing first-stage screening) registered cows are in Table 1.

Table 1. Mean predicted transmitting abilities (PTAs) for milk, fat, protein, productive life (PL), somatic cell score (SCS), and net merit (NM) for registered1 cows passing first-stage screening.

Breed Cows2 (no.) NM ($) PTA milk
(lb)
PTA fat
(lb)
PTA protein
(lb)
PTA SCS PTA PL
(mo)
PTA DPR
Ayrshire 7,383 32 32 0.8 -0.0 2.98 0.7 0.93
Brown Swiss 18,991 33 -28 -0.2 -0.7 2.98 0.7 2.51
Guernsey 3,472 61 -5 -0.1 -0.0 2.96 1.2 3.42
Holstein 571,533 34 -39 0.4 -0.5 2.97 0.6 -1.68
Jersey 152,571 27 -11 1.3 -0.3 2.99 0.6 0.82
Milking Shorthorn 3,518 52 211 8.4 6.1 3.01 0.1 2.16
Red and White 1,526 -71 -653 -13.6 -16.4 3.00 0.6 5.19

   1Includes cows in an identity enrollment program for some breeds.

   2Includes genomically evaluated heifers


Table 2. Standard deviations of PTAs for milk, fat, protein, PL, SCS, and NM for registered1 cows passing first-stage screening.

Breed Cows2 (no.) NM ($) PTA milk
(lb)
PTA fat
(lb)
PTA protein
(lb)
PTA SCS PTA PL
(mo)
PTA DPR
Ayrshire 7,383 +/- 135 +/- 496 +/- 18 +/- 14 +/- 0.13 +/- 1.6 +/- 7.3
Brown Swiss 18,991 +/- 170 +/- 512 +/- 19 +/- 15 +/- 0.12 +/- 2.3 +/- 9.7
Guernsey 3,472 +/- 164 +/- 605 +/- 22 +/- 17 +/- 0.15 +/- 2.1 +/- 9.9
Holstein 571,533 +/- 169 +/- 697 +/- 25 +/- 19 +/- 0.14 +/- 1.5 +/- 9.8
Jersey 152,571 +/- 147 +/- 614 +/- 24 +/- 18 +/- 0.11 +/- 1.4 +/- 7.4
Milking Shorthorn 3,518 +/- 147 +/- 574 +/- 22 +/- 17 +/- 0.13 +/- 1.4 +/- 6.7
Red and White 1,526 +/- 140 +/- 685 +/- 23 +/- 18 +/- 0.12 +/- 1.2 +/- 10

   1Includes cows in an identity enrollment program for some breeds.

   2Includes genomically evaluated heifers

For registered eligible cows, a percentile table for each breed was constructed based on NM. Those percentile tables are provided with USDA-DHIA evaluations for active artificial-insemination bulls. A percentile was assigned for each cow with data distributed in format 105. Although the data for Red and White cows are combined with those for Holstein cows for genetic evaluations, a separate percentile was used for screening Red and White cows for elite or high-ranking grade status. The second-stage screening criterion was the NM corresponding to a specified minimum percentile (Table 3).

Table 3. Percentiles and corresponding NM for a cow to be designated as elite or a high-ranking grade and numbers by breed.

Evaluation
Breed
Minimum
percentile
Minimum
NM ($)
Elite cows
(no.)
High-ranking
grade cows (no.)
Ayrshire 98 322 146 2,311
Brown Swiss 98 376 373 666
Guernsey 98 413 68 198
Holstein 99 438 7,707 6,552
Jersey 99 343 1,525 2,095
Milking Shorthorn 97 339 104 332
Red and White 97 184 383 85



Last Modified: 01/12/2009