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Hierarchical Bayesian Methods To Model Heterogeneity In Cow- And Herd-Level Relationships Between Milk Production And Reproduction In Dairy Cows, Nora M. Bello, Juan P. Steibel, Robert J. Tempelman

Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture

Two of the most important broad classifications of phenotypes for successful dairy production are milk yield and fertility. The nature of the relationship between milk production and reproductive performance of dairy cows is uncertain due to conflicting results reported in many studies. A common deficiency in many such studies is an underappreciation of the dual dimension of the production-reproduction relationship, as defined by herd (random or u) level and cow (residual or e) level sources of (co)variation. Our overall hypothesis is that the e- and u- level relationships between milk production and reproduction in dairy cows are heterogeneous and depend …