Sources of variation and heritability estimates for milking speed in Italian Brown cows

Milking speed is defined as the time required to milk a cow (Bowman et al., 1996). Milkability can be considered an important functional trait in dairy cattle for udder health (Dodenhoff et al., 1999) and workability (Visscher and Goddard, 1995). Sivarajasingam et al. (1984), found milking speed to be the third most important trait on net profit for dairy farms, after milk yield and fat content, so much so that it is included in breeding programmes for dairy cattle (Schneeberger and Hagger, 1985; Boettcher et al., 1997). Different methods to measure milkability traits, subjective and instrumental, were reported in the literature. Meyer and Burnside (1987) found a high genetic correlation between a subjective evaluations of milking speed of cows by Canadian farmers (using five classes: 1 = “very slow”... 5 = “very fast”), with total milking time by chronometer.......

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC

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