Classifiers and show judges evaluate and compare cow body parts for their structure according to the breed conformation scorecard and breed ideals. Yet, yield and profit focused breeders and A.I. are now selecting based on the proven science of the functionality of body parts. This Bullvine article addresses the documented facts on Holstein cows’ rumps. Which rump traits need to be left behind? Which rump related trait indexes need to be used in over ninety percent of dairy herds when selecting and mating sires?

Source: Holstein Canada

What Do Breed Ideal Rumps Look Like?

Both US and Canadian Holstein Breeds describe the ideal rumps as being long, wide, pins slightly lower than hips, neither anus or tailhead recessed, freedom from coarseness, etc. … so as to have rumps that facilitate easier calvings and that assist with improved cow fertility, healthy recovery after calving and increased cow longevity. 

But do those descriptions hold up, when it comes to what happens in the field?

Additionally, which is the correct emphasis on the rump – US at 5 point out of 100 or Canada at 12 points? In the showring it is the author’s observation that judges often place more than 20 points on the rump when giving reasons for their class placings.

The Evolution of Holstein Rumps

Very old cow pictures often show cows that were very, even extremely, sloped from hips to pins. Somewhat like what we see in today’s native wild deer populations.

By the early to mid-twentieth century the desired rump was wide, pins level with hips and tail heads between the pin bones on cows of about 53” – 55” in stature.

Then it was decided that Holstein cows needed to be taller. Much taller by the 1980’s. This tallness and the popular bloodlines seem to have brought with them narrower animals, narrower rumps or smaller pelvis openings and more difficult birthing. An added negative was that breeders wanted larger calves, feeling that larger birth size lead to larger mature animals. In fact, that is not universally the case.

Thank goodness reason is winning out for moderated stature and what size healthy calves need to be.

What Do Results Say About Today’s Ideal Rumps?

Published Canadian (CDN) genetic correlations provide information on rump traits that dairy breeders need to be aware of. These results are based on 4,182 Holstein sires proven between 2003 and 2018.

The genetic correlations to longevity (Herd Life) by the classified traits are: rump angle (0.12), pin width (-0.08), loin strength (0.04), thurl placement (0.18) and overall rump (0.15).

The genetic correlations to fertility (Daughter Fertility) by classified traits are: rump angle (0.04), pin width (-0.06), loin strength (-0.10), thurl placement (0.06) and overall rump (-0.01).

Remember that the breed societies say the ideal rumps lead to improved longevity and fertility – but with those low correlations it just isn’t so.

The conclusion this author draws is that the rump traits, as captured by the type classification programs, do not contribute positively to either longevity or fertility in Canadian Holsteins. Correlations using US data do not appear to be available on the www.

How Important Are Rumps?

How often in a cow’s lifetime can rump structure be a limiting factor?

Consider a cow that first calves at 23 months and completes four lactations and is removed from the herd at 75 months of age. Put on a functioning basis, this means she calves on four days (0.002% of her days), walks on her feet and legs for 2280 days (100% of her days), milks for 1430 days (62.7% of her days) and is dry for 150 days (6.5% of her days).

Draw your own conclusions. However for this author rump structure ranks far far behind feet and legs (foot structure, rear-legs-rear-view, flex of hock and mobility) and mammary system (depth, cleft, teat placement and attachments) when it comes to deserving attention when selecting sires to be used in herds that focus on profitably producing milk solids.

What Really Counts in Rumps?

Rumps that function best allow for quick, easy births, fast recovery of the mother and a healthy calf with minimal stress. For the dam side of this, it is best measured by farmer supplied measurements on her calving ease – Daughter Calving Ease (USA) and Daughter Calving Ability (CAN). For the calf side of this the sire’s calving ease is important – Calving Ease (USA) and Calving Ability (CAN). In the USA, CA$’s are published for animals which combines information on both calving ease and stillbirths.

The Canadian correlations for proven sires, for the study referred to above, are as follows: for longevity (Herd Life) with sire calving ability (0.25) and daughter calving ability (0.43); and for fertility (Daughter Fertility) with sire calving ability (0.14) and daughter calving ability (0.40).

By a considerable amount (2x to 10x) daughter calving ability is a superior index to all the classified rump traits in predicting longevity and fertility in Canadian Holsteins. Although farm captured data does not exist for calf health at one week of age, it is likely that daughter calving ability is at least moderately correlated to calf health and wellbeing.

Why the Fixation with Rumps?

The short answer may have two parts:

1) Tradition – when other more accurate measures were not available, then visual observation of the exterior was the best tool available; and

2) Sight line and proximity – breeders’, classifiers’ and show judges’ eyes, when viewed from the rear of an animal, are at the same level at the rump.

Take Home Messages

1. Daughter Calving Ease (DCE or DCA) is the best predictor that currently exists for the best rumps.
2. Holsteins are improving for Daughter Calving Ease, but breeders will be well rewarded for continuing to use sires that are rated above average for CA$, DCE or DCA.
3. The bull Oman was a great help for the Holstein breed being able to reduce calving difficulties.
4. AI. organizations publish CE’s and DCE’s for their sires and most no longer sample or market sires that leave calves that are born with difficulty.
5. Sire rump type indexes are not good predictors of daughter calving ease.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Current Holstein breed ideals and standards for rump structure and the emphasis placed on rumps in the type classification programs are only of quite limited value for most herds. Outside rump appearance bears little value in predicting calving ease, longevity and fertility.

Conformation evaluations need to include the functioning of the body part and not simply the appearance. Rumps could be a good place for breeds to start in revamping their type classification programs in order to remain relevant to tomorrow dairy farmers’ needs.

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Go to a commercial dairy cattle sales barn, anywhere in the world, if you want to get the low down on what successful milk producers want in the physical traits of the cows that they bid on.

At one time, you would have heard that udders were #1. However, with conformation progress, udders have been significantly improved and have been lifted to hock level in mature cows. It is likely that feet and legs are now #1 when it comes to selection. But do these breeders have good information on which to select for mobility?

Do Breeds Care about Commercial?

That’s a fair question. Do Holstein breed organizations care about what commercial dairy people want the conformation of their cows to be? The answer is, “Apparently; they don’t care!”, as proven by the fact that stature, height at shoulder, depth of rear rib and excessive angularity get an extra reward by type classification programs the world over.  This state of affairs is not surprising since type classification programs around the world have been modeled after the US and Canadian systems, where marketing often far outranks animal improvement in the use made of the information.

Other breeds may not be as obsessed with these ‘pretty’ traits, but they still want them.

Holstein US has acknowledged that there are strong positive correlations between stature and final class and stature and udder composite but, so far, it is an acknowledgment, not a plan to change. Why is that? Could it be that tradition overrules what the cows of the future need to be?

In Canada, Holstein Canada type classifies all the dairy breeds, so the other breeds will get the Holstein goal of tall cows, by proximity, if for no other reason.

I leave the final answer to The Bullvine readers to say if breeds really do care about the conformation of cows in commercial dairy breeders’ herds.

Commercial Dairy Breeders’ Needs

The Bullvine addressed this question in the article, Are You Breeding For The Correct Conformation To Produce The Greatest Lifetime Profit? From our discussion with the three breeders in preparing that article the take home message on conformation we got was:

• The current ideal cows for breeds are not their ideal cow for conformation
• Stature is a detriment, not an asset
• Udders need to be what robots can milk
• With cows milked 3x (or even 4-5x in robots) udders don’t need to be large
• Mobility and no maintenance, not feet & leg structure, is what is needed

The Bullvine has produced other related articles on ideal commercial cow conformation including She Ain’t Pretty She Just Milks That Way and What’s Needed In Type Beyond Udders, Feet, And Legs?

So, if breed type classification programs are not concerned about serving the commercial dairy breeders when it comes to conformation evaluation what alternatives are there?

What Alternatives Are There?

Here are some alternatives to using the current type classification programs available to commercial dairy breeders:

1. Stop classifying
2. Stop breeding for conformation
3. Ask breeds to immediately change the programs
4. Ask breeds to initiate a program that only collects descriptive/linear traits on key traits
5. Only use the information that A.I. or other companies collect for conformation

Do any of these work for you?

A.I. Caught in the Middle

At one time, some A.I. companies collected their own conformation information, and they published the breeding tendencies of their bulls.

However, for approximately forty years A.I. companies have supported and used the results from the type classification programs to select young bulls and promote their sires’ daughters.

Unfortunately, the kicker is that high PTAT or CONF are not correlated with high lifetime yields in milk producing herds.  A.I.’s are therefore caught. They use information that their primary customers do not see the benefit of having.  

This trend is also seen in the new wellness traits introduced by Zoeits.  For many commercial breeders the current CDCB official evaluations that included parentage, production, reproduction, health and type data was not accurately predicting the actual lifetime profitability of their animals.  Zoetis used on farm data that was not typically used or accepted by CDCB to introduce mastitis, lameness, metritis, retained placenta, displaced abomasum, and ketosis traits.  (Read more: The Complete Guide to Understanding Zoetis’ New Wellness Traits – CLARIFIDE® Plus and Can you breed a healthier cow?

What about Electronic Imaging?

Today with new exciting and very useful technology coming out almost monthly, why not consider something for electronically capturing animal conformation at the farm level. Surely, it’s possible.

I can see it now! A camera in the milking parlor or milking stall that snaps multiple pictures or records a video of animals. The images are uploaded to a data base where special software does the analysis. In parlors, it would probably work best in exit lanes where cows could be funneled through in single file. With single box robots, it could be done just after the cow is prepped.

“Not possible” some would say. Electronic imaging works in every other industry so, why couldn’t it work for cattle conformation evaluation? Of course, there will be naysayers, but there are always those people in the world. If it is not breed ‘approved’ so what? If it does the job to help with animal improvement, nothing else is needed.

The newest generic software in this area is very versatile, and it learns quickly. The software initially uses experts to give it “lessons,” but then it begins to build on those lessons. For this, a cow’s ID would be linked to her performance, and health data and a database would soon be created to connect the dots between “physical” traits and performance and/or health data. Some software is already in development in this area (i.e. lameness), but there are other great possibilities for the future.

By the way, this type of a system was talked about twenty years ago by breeds, but it was nixed as it presented the possibility of eliminating or redefining classifiers’ jobs. Breed organizations were not prepared to accept that technology could replace human judgment.  Politics won out over cost, service and animal improvement. Today I feel that more consideration needs to be given to the opportunity for more accurately capturing data and enhancing assessments using traits information from all traits, not just conformation traits.

What Evaluations would be Possible?

The list could, in time, be long but to start with here are a few:

• Udder depth and udder cleft
• Teat length and teat placement
• Udder attachments
• Feet, Pasterns, and Legs
• Mobility (video or series of pictures)
• Thurl location, Slope of Rump,
• Stature, Body width, and depth

What else could happen?

In time, such an automated system would be able to decide how best to evaluate and combine the data captured. If we limited that data to only certain traits we would not get the advantage of artificial intelligence from the software and imaging system. The equipment could take 1000 images on each pass and then scrutinize them to match body parts up to performance and health traits.  A trained machine would be very quick, accurate and cost effective.

Commercial breeders would have more data than they ever imagined possible. Furthermore, a common software and data system could be used worldwide so that dairy cattle improvement organizations could easily share data. Organizations could focus on providing breeders with accurate information and avoid the expense of harmonization.

It could even go further. Going beyond only cows to doing heifers could be helpful for all non-mammary traits, as well as to monitor structural development. The data could even be used on young calves to match genomic data.

Who Would Do This?

To start with, it would take some venture capital for research and development. After that, it could be any interested party, independently or in collaboration with others. In short, it would be individuals or organizations that saw a benefit to having accurate, unbiased conformation evaluations for genetic indexing and animal mating purposes.

It could be an add-on to services offered by milk recording, breed organizations, A.I. companies, milking equipment companies or animal health companies. Perhaps it could even be a company like Google.

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Breeders need relevant and accurate evaluations and indexes for making the best possible mating decisions for their herds. Much of the current information for conformation supplied by breed type classification programs is not suited to the needs of commercial dairy cattle breeders. Alternative means for evaluating and capturing cow and heifer conformation data needs to be given serious consideration.

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It seems that daily there is a new EX-95 cow somewhere in the world, or a VG-89-2yr that will never see the light of day.  While in many cases these cows deserve the recognition they receive, it also seems at times that cows are getting over scored.  However, there comes a point where the animal needs to be worthy of the score, as many breeders have expressed to us here at The Bullvine, they are getting tired of watching cows get over scored.

Over the years I have seen cows get over scored for many reasons.  The most prevalent among them have been:

• Dispersal
  I see it often.  A breeder who has been a long-standing member of the dairy industry is selling out (typically because the next generation does not have the same passion in relation to the reward), and they decide to sell their Master Breeder herd.  Just before the sale they have a dispersal special classification.  During that time, there are reliably a few animals that get an extra point or two.  I am not trying to say this is totally a bad thing, as I do believe these long established breeders do deserve some level of recognition.  I just get concerned when I see cows that should be 92 to 93 points at best being bumped to 95 points.  When you put these animals beside other 95-point animals you will typically find significant difference in how they resemble the breed ideal.
• Show Results
  Just because a 2-year-old won the local county show, or a cow was All-Canadian does not mean they deserve the maximum score.  There is a difference between what shines in the show ring and what should be the 89-point 2 year old in the classification system.  I have seen cows that could not even content at the Royal or Madison go 89 points that, when you break them down, should be no higher than 87 points.  Nevertheless, since she won some show, and someone got in the classifiers’ ear this does happen.
• High Value Animals
  This is the worst one I have seen by far and the one that has the greatest impact on the breed and breed improvement.  It happens when a cow that should really be 83 points (at best) as a 2 year old gets classified 85 points, because she is one of the top index animals in the world.  Now I am sure they will get an amazing photo, but how much can you trust that?  (Read more: Dairy Marketing Code of Conduct) This is the greatest disservice the classification program can do.  These animals will now have their genetics marketed around the world. The perception of high conformation will have a greater impact than all the other biased factors combined.  Makes me think – Is Good Plus Good Enough?

All these headaches with cows being over scored reminds me of the many conversations I have had with my father, Murray Hunt, (he ran the Canadian classification program for many years) and Tom Byers, currently in charge of the classification program (Read more: Tom Byers: “That’s Classified!”).  Tom would point out to me that as a percentage there is actually just the same proportion of cows going to the extremes as their ever was.  It’s since there is more dairy cattle being classified and the power of the internet that we are seeing more of these animals. (Read more:   The Anti-Social Farmer: On The Verge of Extinction) Then Murray will add that we need classifiers to use the full range of the system in order to ensure the best results.  You see the wider the spread in scores the greater the difference in the resulting genetic evaluations.  Instead of being afraid to use the extreme scores, classifiers should actually use it more.  Both for the 89 point 2 year olds, as well as the 65-point ones.

The greater the range the more accurately the genetic evaluation system is able to identify those sires that can breed your extremes.  I think as an industry we do ourselves a disservice by having mainly a 17-point range (75-92) in final score.  In order to truly identify top animals we need to be able to spread them out as much as possible, so that we can pick the best from the rest.  It’s when we stick to the middle that we actually do the most damage to the genetic evaluation system.  When all animals are so closely scored that those animals that do sire the good ones do not rise to the top.  It’s also why classifiers should slap on the Fair-65 classification more often.  Remember classification is relative and dynamic.  A cow that might have been an 89 point 2-year-old 10 years ago might be lucky to go 85 to 87 points today.  It’s not about comparing to the past, but rather identifying the current outliers in the breed. Hence why we need to use the full range of the system.  To accurately identify the true outliers.

Now both Tom and dad would point out to me, how can you stand in a breeders barn and put a score of 65 on one of his cows and ever expect to be back there again to classify.  And I understand that. Trust me years of dad telling me stories about going into different herds and how breeders reacted to certain situations would make a great book. The bigger issues is that there is a perception challenge with using the full spectrum.  Many breeders do not want to be pay money to be told their cow is ugly. But I ask you, why do you classify in the first place?  Is it not to advance the genetics and management of your herd?  Then why do you not let the system work to it’s maximum potential?

The Bullvine Bottom Line

Type Classification has two main purposes, marketing and breed improvement.  From the marketing standpoint I can understand the benefit of over scoring some cows from time to time.  The part that worries me more is when classifiers don’t use the full range as often as possible.  Not just in overall score, but especially in the scoring of each trait as well.  The more often classifiers use the extremes the greater the breed’s rate of advancement will be.  This will help the genetic evaluation system truly identify those sires that are the best for type.  After all isn’t that why we keep score in the first place?

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