Here is a pretty cool new feature that was on display at the Holstein UK’s stand at the Dairy Event and Livestock Show. Called the “Virtual Cow,” this computer program allows producers to look at a three-dimensional image of the ideal cow in comparison to cows of poorer quality. This system should help producers select future breeding pieces for their operations. As reported in the Farmers Guardian, you can check out the entire article here. Some seriously cool stuff…

The computer-based, interactive three-dimensional tool shows the form, movement and condition of the milking cow. It will seem familiar to farmers who have seen Eblex’s Virtual Beef and Virtual Lamb, as it was made by the same company, but contains even more information, with nine scores for each of the 18 type traits. The Virtual Cow graphically illustrates differences in conformation between cows with various classification scores and responds to signals from the user by growing, shrinking or changing shape accordingly.

This means users can select a particular trait they want to view and see what it looks like on the ‘perfect cow’ and compare that to poorer examples. Taking teat placement as an example, zooming in on the udder will show ideal placement, while moving the computer mouse to the left moves the teats out, and to the right moves them in, showing the whole range of good and bad placement.