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The Inheritance of Color in the Milk of Guernsey Cattle^*

J. W. Bartlett, R. P. Reece and J. D. Cowling

New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station

Abstract

The ability to produce highly colored milk is an attribute of the Guernsey cow well recognized by dairymen and by an increasing number of consumers. This marked color difference from the milk of the other principal breeds of dairy cattle gives the Guernsey product a decided advantage on the fluid milk market where the consumer associates high color with high quality. The general validity of this consumer reasoning is true from a calorie standpoint when one considers that the normally high color cows, such as make up the Jersey and Guernsey breeds, produce milk with a higher percentage of fat and total solids than do cows of low color breeds.

Inasmuch as highly colored milk has both a sales advantage and a calorie advantage over milk low in color, it is to the interest of the Guernsey dairyman to maintain and if possible improve the milk color of his cows.

This study was begun in an effort to establish a practical method for evaluating the intensity of milk color, to determine the influence of physiological and environmental factors on color, and to study as a basis for possible improvement the genetics of color within the Guernsey breed.

^* Journal Series paper of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, Department of Dairy Husbandry.

This work has been supported by a grant from the American Guernsey Cattle Club, Peterboro, New Hampshire.