Short communication: Genetic relationships between functional longevity and direct health traits in Austrian Fleckvieh cattle.
The aim of this study was to conduct a multitrait 2-step approach applied to yield deviations and deregressed breeding values to get genetic parameters of functional longevity, clinical mastitis, early fertility disorders, cystic ovaries, and milk fever of Austrian Fleckvieh cattle. An approximate multitrait approach allows the combination of information from pseudo-phenotypes derived from different statistical models in routine genetic evaluation, which cannot be estimated easily in a full multitrait model. A total of 66,890 Fleckvieh cows were included in this study. For estimating genetic parameters, a simple linear animal model with year of birth as a fixed effect and animal as a random genetic effect was fitted. The joint analysis of yield deviations and deregressed breeding values was feasible. As expected, heritabilities were low, ranging from 0.03 (early fertility disorders) to 0.15 (functional longevity). Genetic correlations between functional longevity and clinical mastitis, early fertility disorders, cystic ovaries, and milk fever were 0.63, 0.29, 0.20, and 0.20, respectively. Within direct health traits genetic correlations were between 0.14 and 0.45. Results suggest that selecting for more robust disease-resistant cows would imply an improvement of functional longevity.
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Division of Livestock Sciences, Vienna, Gregor-Mendel-Straße 33, A-1180 Vienna, Austria. Electronic address: christina.pfeiffer@boku.ac.at.
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Pfeiffer
ZuchtData EDV-Dienstleistungen GmbH, Dresdner Straße 89/19, A-1200 Vienna, Austria.
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Fuerst
INRA, UMR 1313, Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative (GABI), 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France.
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Ducrocq
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Division of Livestock Sciences, Vienna, Gregor-Mendel-Straße 33, A-1180 Vienna, Austria.
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Fuerst-Waltl
D000818:Animals; D001317:Austria / Q000453:epidemiology; D001947:Breeding; D002417:Cattle; D002418:Cattle Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D008136:Longevity; D014918:Wills
approximate multiple trait; cattle; functional longevity; genetic parameter; health trait