Drum roll........The answer is--a common term for rating a dairy cow on her body characteristics based on a set of standard criteria. Yeah well you could call it a beauty contest. But many of the characterisics are determined by sound reasons, i.e. good set of feet and legs (keeps the cow mobile so she can get to the feed bunk to eat to make milk) or proper udder attachments and teat placements (poor attachments and the udder "falls"--you gotta keep the milker on)
Today an official from our breed association came and scored our milking cows today. Classification "scores" are broken up into Excellent (90+ pts), VeryGood (89-80), Desirable (79-70), Acceptable (69-60), and Poor (59 or less). Only cows that have calved 2x or more can be scored EX. We added 2 EX cows to the herd making a total of 6 in the herd, 28 VG, 24 D, and 1 A. Because the traits are inheritable we use the information to improve the physical characteristics of the herd and it is a marketing tool as well. Each animal has a special registration # showing DOB, dam, sire, and owner which can be traced back for generations.
And what QE says about milk testing and milk pricing is true for us as well.
ggal--yes a full time dairy; cows are milked here (110) and heifers at our son's. How interesting that you sold feed. Next to our veterinarian, our nutritionist is one of the important "tools" at our dairy!
OBTW we also keep extensive health and reproduction information on every cow.
End of Lesson II of DySci101