Abstract

Better models of genetic evaluation for mastitis can be developed through longitudinal analysis of somatic cell count (SCC) which usually is used as a proxy for mastitis. Mastitis and recovery data with weekly observations of SCC were simulated for daughter groups of 60 and 240 per sire. Data were created to define cases: 1 if SCC was above a pre-specified boundary, else 0. A transition from below to above the boundary indicates probability to contract mastitis, and the other way indicates recovery. The MCMCglmm package was used to estimate breeding values. In the 60 daughters group, accuracies ranged from 0.53 to 0.54 for mastitis and 0.22 to 0.23 for recovery. Whereas, in the 240 daughters group accuracies ranged from 0.83 to 0.85 for mastitis and 0.57 to 0.65 for recovery. Reasonable accuracies can be achieved from SCC based estimates.

Published in

Title: Proceedings of the 10th World Congress of Genetics Applied to Livestock Production (WCGALP)
Publisher: WCGALP

SLU Authors

• Welderufael, Berihu

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Aarhus University

• de Koning, Dirk-Jan

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Fikse, Freddy

  • Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Genetics and Breeding


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/63361