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October 28, 2008

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August 2008 Elite Cow 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%.

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 Cows (no.) NM ($) PTA milk
(lb)
PTA fat
(lb)
PTA protein
(lb)
PTA SCS PTA PL
(mo)
PTA DPR
Ayrshire 8,080 43 60 2.9 2.0 2.98 0.7 0.77
Brown Swiss 20,029 92 184 7.2 6.2 2.99 1.4 -0.42
Guernsey 6,095 60 145 8.9 3.6 3.00 0.6 -0.39
Holstein 580,757 126 259 11.5 8.1 2.97 1.0 -1.43
Jersey 151,722 102 235 13.2 7.8 2.99 1.0 -0.28
Milking Shorthorn 3,791 101 331 14.9 10.2 3.01 0.7 1.23
Red and White 1,713 21 -299 -1.2 -6.2 2.99 0.9 4.37

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


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

Breed Cows (no.) NM ($) PTA milk
(lb)
PTA fat
(lb)
PTA protein
(lb)
PTA SCS PTA PL
(mo)
PTA DPR
Ayrshire 8,080 +/- 107 +/- 430 +/- 15 +/- 12 +/- 0.12 +/- 1.3 +/- 7.3
Brown Swiss 20,029 +/- 140 +/- 510 +/- 19 +/- 15 +/- 0.11 +/- 2 +/- 9.4
Guernsey 6,095 +/- 127 +/- 521 +/- 19 +/- 14 +/- 0.13 +/- 1.8 +/- 9.9
Holstein 580,757 +/- 143 +/- 663 +/- 22 +/- 18 +/- 0.13 +/- 1.5 +/- 9.7
Jersey 151,722 +/- 131 +/- 599 +/- 22 +/- 18 +/- 0.11 +/- 1.3 +/- 7.4
Milking Shorthorn 3,791 +/- 126 +/- 521 +/- 20 +/- 15 +/- 0.12 +/- 1.4 +/- 6
Red and White 1,713 +/- 131 +/- 654 +/- 23 +/- 17 +/- 0.12 +/- 1.3 +/- 9.7

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

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 98 268 158 621
Brown Swiss 98 374 397 706
Guernsey 98 330 120 263
Holstein 99 490 5,800 5,117
Jersey 99 386 1,514 1,853
Milking Shorthorn 97 342 110 296
Red and White 97 256 488 87



Last Modified: 04/27/2007