There are great news for the Italian Holstein Friesian Selection in the evaluation of December 2021! One of these is the new Automated Milking Index IMA.
As the Udder Composite Index ICM by ANAFIBJ (read here the news about ICM), the Automated Milking Index is a composited index. The aim of IMA is to optimized both traditional and robot milking in Holstein Friesian cows.
Basically, IMA enhances those bulls of which daughters has a correct udder conformation and ideal teat length and placement. Moreover, the new index developed by ANAFIBJ considers also locomotion, milking speed and highlights bulls with low somatic cells score.
The composition of the Automated Milking Index is as follows:
– 25% Rear Teat Placement
– 20% Teat Length
– 20% Milking Speed
– 15% Somatic Cells
– 15% Locomotion
– 5% Udder Composite Index
The IMA is expressed as the other ANAFIBJ Management Indexes: the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 5. Therefore, the daughters of bulls with an index higher than 100 will be better in automated and robot milking.
Moreover, the index penalizes udders with too much wide/close or extremely short teats. Also, the bulls with a Milking Speed index lower than 95 or poor Locomotion index are disadvantaged by the IMA.
Since many years, the Selection Program of Intermizoo gives importance to a correct udder conformation and functionality. As a matter of fact, Intermizoo bulls are now very high in Automated Milking Index.
Here you can find the IMA top bulls by Intermizoo:
