SHAWANO, Wis. — With the December sire summary, GENEX released the Ideal Commercial Cow (ICC$) index for Jersey cattle along with two new proprietary traits.
Index
The data-driven ICC$ index focuses on areas Jersey cattle producers rank as most important to their operations.
GENEX formulated the index using data points from multiple sources; the data sources mirror those of the ICC$ index for Holsteins, which was released in 2014.
Data sources include the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding, the Canadian Dairy Network and the Cooperative Resources International (CRI) dairy research database, which consists of GENEX and AgSource Dairy data. The index was calculated with the CRI International Center for Biotechnology.
The ICC$ index for Jerseys is comprised of three sub-indexes: Cheese Maximizer, Sustainability and Fertility. Producers can customize their genetic selection by first selecting for the ICC$ index and then narrowing their emphasis to a specific sub-index.
Traits
Also released are two proprietary traits for Jersey cattle: Age at First Calving (AAFC) and Calf Survivability (CSRV). These traits, calculated by GENEX, are included in the ICC$ index for Jerseys.
For more information, visit genex.crinet.com.
