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Abstract
The use of genomic information in United States (U.S.) dairy cattle evaluations has rapidly increased the rate of genetic gain for several important economic traits. The direction of this gain has not been documented completely and the purpose of this study is to address assumptions of the genetic improvement of U.S. dairy cattle. Gain is expected in heavily selected traits, but determining how the estimated breeding values are used needs to be analyzed. Progress was measured to address assumptions and review the use of genomics in all dairy cattle breeds. Benchmarking dairy cow production records is a resource utilized and referenced widely in the dairy industry (loan purposes, research, extension specialists). Dairy cow population and production statistics are of interest to the industry on a state and national level as indicators of progress. Performance metrics were calculated to increase interaction and accessibility to descriptive statistics in the National Cooperator Database.