The Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding’s (CDCB) 2025 industry meeting at World Dairy Expo drew a crowd of nearly 600 in Madison and online. The research presentations and producer panel focused on the work CDCB has pledged to accomplish as well as the on-farm impact.
Milking speed, released as an official evaluation as of August 2025, will remain separate from net merit. As the available data set grows, the next step is integration with automatic milking.
“The heritability for milking speed was estimated to be 42%,” says Kristen Gaddis, Ph.D., CDCB geneticist. “Even with a fairly modest data set we can get relatively high reliabilities already at the start.”
When it comes to calf health, John B. Cole, Ph.D., says genomic evaluations for respiratory disease and scours in Holsteins and Jerseys are up next.
“They’re going to be based on producer-reported data from the field,” Cole says. “These evaluations will help us produce healthier calves that will move from birth through the growth phase, and then they will enter the milking string at a higher rate than less healthy calves. That’s going to let you make the most of your investment in your genetics program and your calf program.”
Cole urges producers to continue submitting complete data, and reminds that opt-in is required for CDCB to use the information.
According to Ashley Ling, Ph.D., lameness research is two prong: hoof-health evaluations (grouped infectious/non-infectious lesion incidence) and a novel mobility measure from camera and AI systems. The mobility work, she says, shows milk loss rises with lameness; preliminary heritability is moderate, suggesting selection can help alongside management.
Using What We Know to Let Cows Live Longer
Albert De Vries, Ph.D., University of Florida, is examining genetic gains in production to answer the question: Why are cows that are able to stay much longer in the herd not staying longer in the herd?
He cautions against lifetime as the target: “You want to maximize profitability per unit of the most limiting factor, and a reasonable metric for that is profitability per cow per year.”
When it comes to on-farm factors that correlate with longevity, here’s what three producers have to say:
- Glenn Kline (Y Run Farms LLC, Pa.) – His team uses beef-on-dairy and IVF to concentrate replacements from top females. “Back in 2011 we started on genomic testing, and boy, that’s made a huge difference on our herd,” he says. “We’ve been using beef on dairy to keep our lower production cows using beef, and we use IVF to try to make better heifers of the good ones.”
- Eric Grotegut (Grotegut Dairy, Wis.) – Calf management, upgraded facilities and hoof work are factors he attributes to better longevity, achieving a replacement rate of 25. “There are a lot of external factors, but in general, I try not to make too many heifers,” he says. “It just makes the culling easier. Instead of culling problem cows or culling lower performers, genetically they’re definitely able to stay longer.”
- Kristen Metcalf (Glacier Edge Dairy, Wis.) – Metcalf stresses the importance of numerous traits and indexes to suit a variety of management styles. “I think it’s all part of the farming perspective, right? We have different dairy farms, we have different preferences, and we have these great new technologies and tools that let us filter for the traits we want. Why not leave them as long as the data is there? Everyone farms and manages differently.”
CDCB’s pipeline continues to expand what genetics can accomplish. Whether cows actually stay longer still hinges on day-to-day choices: heifer supply discipline, hoof/mobility focus, calf wellness and using the right index for the farm’s constraints.
