Optimising breeding of dairy cows

Dairy cow breeding continues to face several monumental challenges, namely the need to balance production and non-production traits with consumer expectations surrounding animal health, welfare, resilience and sustainability. At the same time, there is a growing body of phenotypic and genetic data which, when combined with state-of-the-art analytical techniques, can improve the precision and applicability of dairy cow breeding and contribute to achieving a greater level of sustainability for the sector. Optimising breeding of dairy cows: Leveraging genetics for more sustainable production provides a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in dairy cow breeding, focussing on recent advances in the use of genomics, phenomics and other ‘omics’ technologies. The book also considers how particular technologies can be applied to achieve desired breeding goals, such as improvements in feed efficiency, heat/humidity tolerance, reproductive efficiency and longevity. This book builds on a successful earlier volume published by Burleigh Dodds Science: Advances in breeding of dairy cattle (2019). Edited by an internationally-renowned expert, the book will be a standard reference for university and other researchers in dairy and veterinary science, farmers, companies involved in dairy breeding, as well as governments and other private sector agencies supporting sustainable dairy production. Professor Donagh Berry is a Senior Principal Research Officer in quantitative genetics at Teagasc, Ireland as well as holding several (inter)national professorship appointments. He is strongly engaged in third-level education and extension to a wide range of different stakeholders. He has published over 370 journal publications mostly relating to dairy cow breeding. Working across species, his research interests are in phenotyping strategies, breeding goal development and deployment, genetic evaluations and genomic predictions.