Patent ID: 7666599

Claim:
A method for identifying a bovine animal having a higher daughter pregnancy rate (DPR) or longer productive life (PL), said method comprising: (a) obtaining a biological sample from said bovine animal, said biological sample comprising nucleic acids encoding the bovine calpastatin (CAST) gene from said bovine; (b) detecting in said nucleic acids the presence of at least one of: (i) a G in both alleles of the CAST gene at position corresponding to position 7549 of SEQ ID NO: 3; (ii) a C in both alleles of the CAST gene at position corresponding to position 7561 of SEQ ID NO: 3; (iii) a T in both alleles of the CAST gene at position corresponding to position 7626 of SEQ ID NO: 3; (iv) only four GAAA repeats in both alleles of the CAST gene at a position corresponding to position 5433 of SEQ ID NO: 5; (c) correlating the presence of the nucleic acid content of (b) with a higher daughter pregnancy rate (DPR) or longer productive life (PL) in said bovine animal.