Udder type traits have always been an important issue in dairy cattle breeding as they are associated with lifetime production, and thus exert a major influence on the welfare and profitability of dairy cattle. The paper discusses the genetic importance of udder type which is assessed visually for different individual functional traits like fore udder attachment, rear udder width, rear udder height, teat placement, suspensory ligament and udder depth. Firstly, average scores for these traits in different breeds of cattle are presented. The tropical breeds of cattle are having shallow udders with strong and firm fore udder attachment whereas udders of temperate breeds are deep with intermediate strength. The udder type scores are moderately heritable in European cattle while more genetic variability is present in Indian breeds due to the reason that udder type scores are not taken as components of selection programmes as is done in case of European breeds. Investigations on the association between udder scores and milk production reveal that udder depth has the greatest influence, cows with deep udder produce more milk than those having shallow udder. In general relationships between udder type scores and milk yield estimated by different research groups are high in magnitude. This sort of relationship can be utilized in predicting the milk production as well as selecting the high producing cows at early stages. Finally, the importance of udder scores in genetic selection of cows was reviewed. Selection on udder type scores will improve milking ease and udder health besides milk production, which meant indicating that breeding only for production traits increases the risk of involuntary culling.
