Genetics and environment drive the performance of your dairy. Your milk check and how much of it that stays in your pocket is the evaluation of just how well your dairy is performing. Production performance is correlated to environmental influences in daily operations on a dairy. That environment can change day to day, but those changes are constant for every cow in the herd.
Why does milk production differ between two cows in the same environment?
We’ve discounted the influence of genetics if we only assume the correlation of the environment. Genetics create variation in performance within a population and explains why cows in the same environment have varying levels of performance. Twenty percent of milk production is correlated to genetics. Genetics are permanent in the herd and compound with each generation. This means genetic selection impacts today’s performance as well as future performance.
[READ: Assess your Genetics with ABS]
While production performance and profitability interact with one another, those traits that influence them are not always the same. Watch traits like PTA Milk and PTA Protein for production performance and fertility traits, udder health and diseases resistance traits, longevity traits, body size traits, functional type for profitability.
Improve your milk check with your herd’s genetic potential.
Sound management practices and the right genetics are necessary for a sustainable and profitable dairy. Making decisions on what genetics to use should not be taken lightly, because the choices you make today stick with you in the herd for years to come. With over eighty years of experience, ABS understands that.
Read more about the impact of genetics on your milk check in our article originally published in Progressive Dairy.
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