Abstract
Spotted cattle breed is the most common breed in Austria. Austrian Spotted cattle breed is bred as a dual purpose breed for more than 100 years. The breeding objective has changed over the time according to the different economic importance of the traits and according to the different possibilities in using estimated breeding values (EBVs) for selection. Since 1998 the breeding objective is defined as the aggregate genotype of production traits and functional traits. All economically important traits are combined according to their economic weights in the total merit index (TMI). The TMI is calculated by combining the EBVs of all traits using a selection index procedure. The index weights (b-values) are estimated depending on the reliabilities of the EBVs and are therefore different from animal to animal. Considering the intensive international exchange of semen from the best bulls, the cooperation in the breeding programs and the similar economic situation in agriculture the breeding organizations of Germany and Austria decided to make a joint across-country evaluation for all traits. Since November 2002 breeding values for all traits and as a logical conclusion the TMI are evaluated jointly. The result is a high acceptance of the EBVs and the TMI by the farmers because of smaller changes of the breeding values for national and foreign bulls between consecutive evaluations. The realized economic gain in the different traits is very close to the expected economic gain. In the last 10 years on average 88.2 % of the economic gain were realized in the milk traits, 4.2 % in the beef traits and 7.6 % were realized in the fitness traits.
Highlights
Almost 80 % of the cattle in Austria belong to the Spotted cattle breed with a total number of 1.6 million heads. 17,700 farmers keep 250,000 herdbook cows
The tools for selecting for production and functional traits are available in most countries and in Austria
These tools are recording schemes for traits of economic importance, genetic evaluation procedures based on an animal model and index selection theory
Summary
Almost 80 % of the cattle in Austria belong to the Spotted cattle breed with a total number of 1.6 million heads. 17,700 farmers keep 250,000 herdbook cows. The farmers are member in local breeding organisations. Many decisions in the breeding program, for example selection of the bull dams, are made by the local organisations together with the farmers. A milestone was the decision to define the breeding objective in an aggregate genotype including all economically important traits and to combine the EBVs according to their economic weights in the TMI in 1998. Another milestone decision was to take part in the across country evaluation of Germany and Austria. It took two years to change from the national breeding value estimation to the across country evaluation for all traits. In addition we would like to show the genetic gain absolute and relative in all the traits included in the aggregate genotype realized in the last 10 years
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