If you are looking for ways to improve health in your dairy herd, no other company offers a more reliable and well-documented solution for improving health through genetics than VikingGenetics does. With more than three decades of breeding selection on health traits, our genetics can transmit superior health characteristics.
General health index in NTM
In our NTM index, the general health index describes a bull’s daughters’ genetic potential to resist reproductive, metabolic and feet & leg diseases. This trait includes breeding values for:
- Early reproductive disorders
- Retained placenta
- Hormonal & infective reproductive disorders
- Other reproductive disorders
- Late reproductive disorders
- Hormonal & infective reproductive disorders
- Other reproductive disorders
- Metabolic disorders
- Ketosis
- Milk fever
- Other metabolic and feed related disorders
- Feet & Leg problems
The general health index is calculated based on health records made by veterinarians during the first three lactations. Official registrations are done for all cows on all farms in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. That results in a high reliability of breeding values for general health.
By breeding for better health, your cows will stay longer in your herd. Longevity has the highest correlation to daughter fertility, general health, hoof health and udder health (all around 40% correlation) meaning that these traits are the most important for a cow’s productive life.
