What do the Column Headings Mean

[peachlady]

I just joined this board. I live in Missouri. We own South Poll Grass Cattle and 2 Jerseys. One is in milk now and the other is a 9 month old heifer.
We bought our first Jerseys a few months ago. I am just starting to shop for semen. We want bulls that are A2/A2 and I have a list of tested bulls with their results, but I do not know what the column headings mean on the sire list. We have raised beef cattle, Dexters and Nubian goats but just for our own use so have not paid attention to butterfat or protein and I have never seen a chart like the ones for these dairy bulls.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Ronda
Sandy Creek Farm

[JayHerron]

Hi Rhonda!
Welcome to the polled Jersey community! I'll try to help and others can add to the discussion too.

JH1 is short for Jersey Haplotype 1. A bull (or cow) can be a carrier or free. If he is a carrier and he is bred to a cow that is a carrier, then there tends to be a 25% reduction in conception rates. This was discovered after genotyping was introduced. Some people choose to ignore this and simply choose bulls that have the desired traits. Others avoid all bulls that are carriers. And then there are people like me who use JH1 bulls occasionally, but limit their use in my herd.

REL% stands for reliability percent. This simply tells you how reliable the reported numbers are. The higher percentage, the more likely the daughters are to the averages reported in the proof.

Milk, Fat and Protein are pretty self explanatory. The higher the number, the more of each of these the daughter should produce.

NM$ stands for net merit dollars. It is a ranking that combines several production traits as well as feed costs, somatic cell counts, ect into a formula. This formula is supposed to rank the bulls by profitability of their daughters.

SCS stands for Somatic Cell Score. High numbers in this column are bad.

PL stands for productive life. Again this is calculated by using several other traits including production traits as well as type traits.

DPR stands for daughter pregnancy rate. This measures the estimated fertility of the daughters.

JPI is Jersey Production Index. This combines milk, fat and protein into one number.

JUI stands for Jersey Udder Index. This is a composite score of the daughters udder traits. The higher the number, the better the udder.

I hope this helps. Let me know if I can answer any other questions.