Dr. Paul Crosson:

Looking at the relative emphasis, which means how much emphasis is put on the various traits, the farmer wants to improve many traits in the suckler cow. Carcass weight is one of those. It is approximately 11% of the total, so almost 90% of the emphasis is on fertility, milk, cull value, calving traits and all the other traits we want in a suckler cow. We are trying to balance them all. It is also important to remember that the resulting calf is a combination of the cow's genetics, the replacement index, and the sire's genetics, the terminal index. In the terminal index, carcass traits account for almost 50%, which makes sense. You produce a terminal sire calf for slaughter, whereas under the replacement index a calf is being bred to produce a suckler cow. It is about trying to get a balance of all the desirable traits in a profitable suckler cow and the balance comes in at 11% on carcass weight.