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    Most U.S. Dairy Cows Are Descended From Just 2 Bulls. That's Not Good

    The drive to make more milk has had an unsavory side effect: Cows have become more genetically similar and less fertile. Scientists are trying to recover valuable genetic variation that was lost.
    by Daniel Charles Oct 17, 2019 3 minutes
    Unlike most dairy cows in America, which are descended from just two bulls, this cow at Penn State has a different ancestor: She is the daughter of a bull that lived decades ago, called University of Minnesota Cuthbert. The bull's frozen semen was preserved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Chad Dechow, a geneticist at Penn State University who studies dairy cows, is explaining how all of America's cows ended up so similar to each other.

    He brings up a website on his computer. "This is the company Select Sires," he says. It's one of just a few companies in the United States that sells semen from bulls for the purpose of artificially inseminating dairy cows.

    Dechow chooses the lineup of Holstein bulls.

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