Inheritance of Milking Capacity

Abstract

A STUDY of the milk yields of the progeny of 728 bulls of the Red Danish breed has been made with a view to determine—first, the ability of each bull to transmit the different degrees of milking capacity; and secondly, having thus obtained an index of this ability, to determine the extent to which it was influenced by the various animals in his pedigree. The average number of daughters to each bull was 18. The figures were taken from the annual reports of the Milk Recording Societies throughout Denmark for 1918–1931. The daughters' yields were mainly calculated on the average of the first two lactations and corrected to the third lactation. The records of the dams and grandams were based on as many lactations as possible, from three to ten, and averaging 5.5. The average of these uncorrected lactations was taken as an indication of the milking capacity of the dam or grandams.