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Heritability of Milk Production in Milking Shorthorn Cattle

United States Department of Agriculture

Abstract

The first lactation milk production records from 163 Milking Shorthorn cows raised and milked at the Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, Maryland, from 1934 through 1951, were analyzed to determine the heritability estimates of milk, butterfat and peak-daily-milk production for this herd. The paternal half-sib correlation method was used with the 163 cows. Both the paternal half-sib correlation method and the intra-sire daughter on dam regression method were used with 123 of the 163 cows on which records were available on both the daughters and dams.

The heritability coefficients for milk, butterfat, and peak-daily-milk production were 28.4, 36.8 and 16.9 percent for the 163 cows derived from the paternal half-sib correlation method. They were 14.2, 24.5 and 14.8 percent from the paternal half-sib correlation method and 71.1, 83.9 and 73.7 percent from the intra-sire daughter on dam regression method for the 123 cows.

Possible causes for the differences found between the estimates obtained from the paternal half-sib correlations and those from the intra-sire daughter-on-dam regressions were discussed. The authors conclude on the basis of the results and of this discussion that the true heritability for the additive portion of the inheritance for the three milk production characters in this herd lies between the values found by the two methods.

¹ Guest Research Collaborator from China.

² Animal Husbandman, United States Department of Agriculture. Acknowledgement is made to Dr. R. G. Schott of the Bureau of Animal Industry for reading and criticizing the manuscript and to R. P. Kennedy, Dual-Purpose Cattle Herdsman at the Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, Md., who helped collect the milk production data.