Matthew Spangler (University of Nebraska - Lincoln): Whole herd reporting is really a system that many beef breed associations use to incentivize some of their members to return phenotypes on all animals in their respective herds. So, oftentimes there's a different fee structure associated with whole herd reporting, providing some kind of economic incentive for producers to do this. Where this has become extremely beneficial is getting phenotypes for things like fertility, that oftentimes are harder to collect and, for some people, not routine to collect. Because of whole herd reporting, in many cases it has actually offered up the opportunity to calculate EPDs for some of those more novel traits like heifer pregnancy or stay-ability.
Link to Content
Label