THE VALUE OF GENETIC INFORMATION IN SELECTION OF REPLACEMENT HOLSTEIN HEIFERS

Genetic information is valuable to livestock producers because its incorporation into their selection decisions results in improved animals. Hedonic models have been developed to value bulls' genetic traits to form a pricing mechanism for semen (Schroeder et al.; Richards and Jeffrey). Harris and Freeman estimated the economic weights of genetic traits that maximize producer income. These examples are representative of studies which valued genetic traits, but we are not aware of any research valuing the information on the underlying genetic traits