Dairy

1205D Anthony
Dept. of Animal Science
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1225

Phone: (517) 355-8442
Fax: (517) 353-1699
E-mail: ferris@msu.edu
Web pages: Community of Science Profile

Education
BS, Pennsylvania State University
MS, Michigan State University
PhD, Michigan State University

Responsibility
20% Research, 80% Extension

Extension: Extension efforts are focused on providing educational programs in dairy cattle genetics to assist dairy producers in improving the genetic level of their dairy herds; providing educational programs for producers and agribusiness professionals on dairy management; use of management information and human resource management; advising artificial insemination organizations regarding dairy cattle genetics programs and services they provide to dairy producers; and providing tools for whole farm business analysis.

Research: Past research has focused in the area of dairy cattle breeding and genetics with the inclusion of economic processes to evaluate dairy cattle breeding methods. This involved the economics of cow and sire selection strategies, use of embryo transfer, and the accuracy of pedigree information used in selecting parents of young sires. The current focus is on the use of test-day models for daily milk production to assess changes in performance resulting from specific management changes and environmental factors; and using farm based data to improve business management decisions.