USDA’s Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory (AIPL) over
the past two years has developed AI conception rate summaries for sires,
assuming calculations previously done by regional Dairy Records Processing
Centers (DRPCs) such as Provo, UT and Raleigh, NC.
Now it appears the Sire Conception
Rate data will not be updated for April 2010 summaries—it seems that one of the
larger midwest DHI programs (owned by an AI cooperative) only chose to report
data on sires with “their” stud code!
(AIPL’s website indicates they will address these problems.)
Sire summaries for production, health
and fitness (fertility) traits are only as good as the data collection and
on-farm sire ID procedures used by DHIA.
Nationally, almost half of DHI data arrives at AIPL in a condition that
indicates errors, thus throwing it out for sire and cow indexes.
If you are on test, do not take
shortcuts with the data you submit to testers who are not being paid extra for
getting the paperwork correct. If you
need our help with sire registration numbers (simple format errors in the number
of zeros in a stud code will get sire IDs thrown out) let us know. Also do not let testers determine your
culling reasons for why cows leave—all this information has genetic value only
when it presents causes accurately, rather than a pre-conceived (thus
historically biased) picture.
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