Instinctively, having direct involvement with Guernseys, Holsteins and Jerseys, I should have known the answer to the question posed by Dan Weigel, a geneticist in outcomes research at Zoetis.
"What is the most fertile dairy heifer among all dairy breeds?" Weigel asked the audience attending the 130th annual Holstein Association USA convention in St. Charles, Ill.
It is engrained in most people's psyche that the Jersey is the most fertile dairy cow (that is definitely accurate on the cow side). However, hands down, it's the Holstein when it comes to heifers.
Heifer conception rate (HCR) (which is tracked and calculated by USDA-CDCB) is the genetic trait being measured when answering the question posed by Weigel. And since all breeds are ranked on the same base, the comparison clearly shows that Holstein heifers have the advantage. When placing embryos or sexed semen into potential recipients, Holstein heifers will yield the most pregnancies.
However, all Holstein heifers are not the same.
In herds with good reproductive management, two-thirds of the top-end get pregnant with one unit of semen, while the bottom-end requires almost three units.
