Abstract

Reproduction and health traits are of significant economic importance for dairy production. Most of these traits are expressed in a categorical way and show heritabilities of 5% or less. Nevertheless, their additive genetic variation is considerable. For example, the incidence of clinical mastitis in the first lactation varies among daughter groups of Swedish Holstein bulls between 10 and 26%, stillbirth rate at first parity between 3 and 16%, and the number of inseminations per serviced cow between 1.6 and 1.9. Unfavourable genetic correlations of the order of 0.2-0.4 between production on one side, and mastitis and female fertility on the other, have generally been found. Well integrated recording schemes in the Scandinavian countries enabled early the adoption of total merit indexes (TMI), including reproduction and health traits, into their selection schemes. In practice, TMI selection has proven to be effective in maintaining functional efficiency of the cows simultaneously with a sharp increase in production. As bull selection nowadays takes place globally, sustainable breeding programmes require more extensive recording and genetic evaluations of reproduction and health traits internationally, a development that presently grows quickly. The Scandinavian experiences are reviewed in this paper in the light of this international development. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Published in

Livestock Production Science
2003, Volume: 83, number: 2-3, pages: 99-112
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

SLU Authors

• Philipsson, Jan

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science
Veterinary Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0301-6226(03)00047-2

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/399