Interbull Routine Genetic Evaluation for Dairy Production Traits

August 2012


Introduction
The latest international evaluation for dairy production traits took place as scheduled at the Interbull Centre. Data from twenty seven (27) countries were included in this evaluation.

International genetic evaluations for milk, fat and protein yields of bulls from Australia, Austria-Germany, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark-Finland-Sweden, Estonia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia,Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Republic of South Africa, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America ,Portugal and Korea were computed. Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Holstein, Jersey, Red Dairy Cattle and Simmental breed data were included in this evaluation.

Changes in national procedures
Changes in the national genetic evaluation of production traits are as
follows:

JPN HOL Because we have corrected some cow's pedigree, the number of daughters, herds, 
and EDC decreased in some bulls.
 
CHE BSW For most of the trait groups, some bulls lost usually single herds and/or 
daughters and/or edc
 
LTU HOL/RDC  Minor data editing
 
IRL SIM/HOL/
RDC/JER		 In terms of these evaluations there is quite a bit of movement in the production proofs for our minor breeds such as RDC and Jersey.
ESP HOL Some bulls loosing their proof because an update on their international pedigre code
 

INTERBULL CHANGES COMPARED TO THE APRIL ROUTINE RUN
No changes in Interbull procedures

Data and method of analysis
Data were national genetic evaluations of AI sampled bulls with at least 10 daughters or 10 EDC (for clinical mastitis and maternal calving traits at least 50 daughters or 50 EDC, and for direct calving traits at least 50 calvings or 50 EDC) in at least 10 herds. Table 1 presents the amount of data included in this Interbull evaluation for all breeds.

National proofs were first de-regressed within country and then analysed jointly with a linear model including the effects of evaluation country, genetic group of bull and bull merit. Heritability estimates used in both the de-regression and international evaluation were as in each country's national evaluation.

Table 2 presents the date of evaluation as supplied by each country in the 01x-proof file.

Estimated genetic parameters and sire standard deviations are shown in APPENDIX I and the corresponding number of common bulls are listed in APPENDIX II.

Scientific literature
The international genetic evaluation procedure is based on international work described in the following scientific publications:

International genetic evaluation computation:

Schaeffer. 1994. J. Dairy Sci. 77:2671-2678
Klei, 1998. Interbull Bulletin 17:3-7

Verification and Genetic trend validation:

Klei et al., 2002. Interbull Bulletin 29:178-182.
Boichard et al., 1995. J. Dairy Sci. 78:431-437

Weighting factors:

Fikse and Banos, 2001. J. Dairy Sci. 84:1759-1767

De-regression:

Sigurdsson and G. Banos. 1995. Acta Agric. Scand. 45:207-219
Jairath et al. 1998. J. Dairy Sci. Vol. 81:550-562

Genetic parameter estimation:

Klei and Weigel, 1998, Interbull Bulletin 17:8-14
Sullivan, 1999. Interbull Bulletin 22:146-148

Post-processing of estimated genetic correlations:

Mark et al., 2003, Interbull Bulletin 30:126-135
Jorjani et al., 2003. J. Dairy Sci. 86:677-679
http://www.interbull.org/documents/genetic_correlation_estimation_procedure.pdf 

Time edits

Weigel and Banos. 1997. J. Dairy Sci. 80:3425-3430

International reliability estimation

Harris and Johnson. 1998. Interbull Bulletin 17:31-36

Next routine international evaluation
The next routine evaluation of Interbull for production, conformation, udder health, longevity, calving, female fertility and workability traits is scheduled for November 2012. Deadline for sending data to the Interbull Centre is Tuesday November 20, 2012, 17:00 CET; confidential distribution of results is targeted for Thursday November 29, 2012, with earliest possible official release of results on December 4, 2012. 

Next test international evaluation
The next test run for production, conformation, udder health, longevity, calving, female fertility and workability traits will take place in September 2012. 

Countries planning to introduce changes in their national evaluation procedures and wishing to have them included in the routine Interbull evaluation, should have their data examined in this test run. New data and validation results should be sent to the Interbull Centre no later than September 4, 2012, 17:00 CET.

PUBLICATION OF INTERBULL ROUTINE RUN
Results were distributed by the Interbull Centre to designated representatives in each country. The international evaluation file comprised international proofs expressed on the base and unit of each country included in the analysis. Such records readily provide more information on bull performance in various countries, thereby minimising the need to resort to conversions.

At the same time, all recipients of Interbull results are expected to honour the agreed code of practice, decided by the Interbull Steering Committee, and only publish international evaluations on their own country scale. Evaluations expressed on another country scale are confidential and may only be used internally for research and review purposes.

All recipients are also expected to follow the agreed guidelines for advertising genetic merit. The guidelines has been distributed to all members and is available on the Interbull homepage (http://www.interbull.org) under "Public Area/Publications/Guidelines/Interbull Advertising Guidelines".