APPLICATION OF A SCORING PROCEDURE AND TRANSFORMATIONS TO DAIRY TYPE CLASSIFICATION AND BEEF EASE OF CALVING CATEGORICAL DATA

Abstract

An objective scoring procedure was used to assign numerical scores for dairy cow type classification categories and for beef cattle ease of calving codes. The scores derived were (0, 22, 46, 66, 84, 100) for the six categories of final type classification and (0, 38, 100) for the three categories of ease of calving. This scoring procedure attempts to provide homogeneous residual variances over subclasses and to provide residual deviations that are normally distributed. Logarithm and square root variance stabilizing transformations for equally spaced ease of calving scores did not affect sire rankings, but increased the ratio of error to sire variances and reduced heritability estimates compared to untransformed scores.