# Presentation: 681329

## Disposal reporting and disposition of culled cows by parity and herd size

## DHIA Termination Codes (TC)

| 0 | Lactation in progress or ended normally |
| --- | --- |
| 1 | Locomotion problems (feet and legs) |
| 2 | Sold for dairy purpose or herd discontinued testing |
| 3 | Sold for beef – low production |
| 4 | Sold for beef – reproductive problems |
| 5 | Sold for beef – reasons not specified |
| 6 | Died |
| 7 | Sold for beef – mastitis or high SCC |
| 8 | Lactation ended with abortion1 |
| 1at >= 152 days and < 251 days since conception, or aborted at >= 200 days in milk if no breeding date |  |

## Herd Disposal Reporting

**40,849 herd-years from 2000********2003 **
**Herds continuing on test**
******80% test-day records passing edits **
******10 test days**
**33% of cows in milk with final record reported during the herd year**
**Termination code (TC) 3-7 reported for 1,043,055 cows**
**No disposal information reported for ~20% of final records**

## Distribution of TCAnnual Percentage of Cows in Milk 

| Herd size | Herd-years (no.) | Percentage cows with TC 3-7 | Percentage of culled cows coded with TC |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  |  |  | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|  |  |  | production | reproduction | unspecified | died | mastitis/SCC |
| <25 | 2203 | 24 | 12 | 18 | 32 | 12 | 14 |
| 25-49 | 13,893 | 26 | 12 | 21 | 38 | 10 | 18 |
| 50-99 | 16,578 | 26 | 13 | 21 | 38 | 11 | 17 |
| 100-149 | 3836 | 27 | 15 | 21 | 34 | 13 | 17 |
| 150-199 | 1443 | 26 | 16 | 21 | 33 | 14 | 17 |
| 200-299 | 1105 | 25 | 15 | 19 | 36 | 15 | 15 |
| 300-499 | 791 | 25 | 17 | 16 | 37 | 15 | 15 |
| ≥500 | 1000 | 25 | 23 | 15 | 35 | 12 | 15 |
| All | 40,849 | 26 | 13 | 20 | 37 | 11 | 17 |

## Cow Disposal Reporting

**8.5 million final lactation records since 1997**
**2.8 million likely in progress**
**Calving in 2004 or 2005**
**TC *****not***** 3-7 **
**0.5 million sold for dairy (TC 2)**
**To herds not participating in DHIA testing**
**4.0 million include disposal code (TC 3-7)**
**1.2 million unknown disposition**
**Herd discontinued DHIA testing (and TC 2 not used)**
**Disposal not recorded or ambiguous **

## Distribution of TCPercentage of reported disposals 

| Record Processing Center | TC |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|  | production | reproduction | unspecified | died | mastitis/SCC |
| A | 7 | 14 | 56 | 9 | 14 |
| B | 29 | 10 | 35 | 16 | 10 |
| C | 23 | 14 | 34 | 12 | 17 |
| D | 11 | 22 | 33 | 16 | 18 |
| All | 18 | 17 | 35 | 14 | 16 |

## Data

**Terminal lactation records (3,138,918) **
**Lactations 1-5**
**Ending 1998 through 2004 **
**TC 3-7 **
**Paired with herd-year averages for the year culled**
**Milk**
**Fat**
**Protein**
**SCS and SCC**

## Models

**Difference from herd average (HA) for milk, fat, and protein included TC (3 vs. other) **
**Difference from HA for SCS and SCC included TC (7 vs. other)**
**Days open included TC (4 vs. other) and was restricted to cows with >50 DIM**
**All included lactation number, termination year and interactions with TC**

## Yield Results

**Cows with TC 3 had milk yield ****2%**** and protein yield ****3%**** lower than HA**
**Significantly different from other culled cows with milk yield ****5%**** and protein yield ****2%**** higher than HA**

## SCS Results

**Cows with TC 7 had SCS ****21%**** higher than HA**
**Significantly different from other culled cows, although those cows also had SCS higher (****4%****) than HA **

## Reproduction Results

**Cows with TC 4 had significantly higher days open (****258****) than other culled cows with at least 50 DIM (****173**** days open)**

## Disposal by Parity

**The most common reported reasons for culling cows in 1****st**** lactation were low production (TC 3) and reproductive problems (TC 4)**
**The most common reported reason for culling cows in 3****rd**** or later lactation was high SCC/mastitis (TC 7)**

## Conclusions

**Most terminal records include an indication cow status (live/dead)**
**Most records for culled cows include an indication of cause**
**Reported TC are supported by cow and herd records**
**Research aimed at using TC information to improve trait analysis is warranted **