In developing countries, there is limited level of milk recording, and use of TD models would result in reduced cost of recording as we could have longer intervals between milk recording and less frequent collection of milk samples. In this way, the amount of information that can accrue from incorporating the majority of smallholders who have small herd sizes would be large.
In Kenya, official milk recording schemes in cattle
for smallholders is non-existent. A majority of dairy
farmers are smallholder producing some 56% of total
milk and 80% of the total marketed milk nationally
(Omore et al. 1999) based on small herd sizes of two to
three animals in about 1 ha land size. The dairy industry
is a significant source of employment in Kenya.