MPPA

Because there isn’t enough abbreviations in the cattle industry they hit you with another one, MPPA! The MPPA abbreviation stands for Most Probable Producing Ability and is used as another measure of a cow’s “value” to your herd. The two factors that contribute to the MPPA number are the cow’s ability to produce milk for her calf(s) and her contribution of genetics to the calf. A cow that is considered average in the herd will have a MPPA  of 100. This number can go up or down based upon her percentage compared to the herd. For example, a cow that performs 5% better than the herd average will have an MPPA of 105 while a cow that underperforms by 5% will have an MPPA of 95%.

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Utilizing this metric can help producers decide which cows to keep or cull. A cow that is consistently underperforming compared to the herd can be easily identified by the MPPA and removed, thus progressing the herd towards uniformity and an overall increase in productivity. As always, this is one tool that can help with culling decisions and should not be the only deciding factor.

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MPPA can be found on the RedAngus.org site with the dam summary or on Cattlemax under offspring.

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