Fig. 1

Eight scenarios varying the timing and number of herd visit observations to collect blood progesterone concentrations for measuring age at puberty (AGEP). The first scenario (early, mid, and late; EML) represented the actual experiment comprising of three visit observations. The second scenario (early, mid or late; E/M/L) simulated only one randomly assigned visit observation for each herd. The third, fourth and fifth scenarios simulate that all herds are only visited once E, M or L, respectively. The sixth, seventh and eighth scenarios simulate two observations per herd: early and mid (EM); mid and late (ML); or early and late (EL), respectively