Genetic parameters for dairy production of Australian Black and White cows

Abstract

An initial study on the inheritance of first and second lactation dairy production in Australian Black and White cows is presented for the states of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. A total of 116,043 first and 14,767 second lactation records for 326 young and 415 old, and 200 young and 31 old sires, respectively, were analyzed using a multivariate Restricted Maximum Likelihood procedure. Analyses were carried out for a mixed model fitting herd-year-seasons and proven sires as fixed, young sires as random effects and age at calving as a linear and quadratic covariable. In addition, the effects of lactation length and month of calving were investigated. The within-HYS phenotypic variation was high with distinct differences between states. As a consequence, heritability estimates were low compared to literature values. Pooled estimates were 0.17, 0.15, 0.38, 0.13 and 0.25 for first lactation milk yield, fat yield, fat content, protein yield and protein content, respectively. Correlations among yields were high, ranging from 0.71 to 0.91 genetically, and from 0.90 to 0.95 phenotypically. Milk yield was negatively related to concentration of constituents, genetic and phenotypic correlations being of the order of −0.4 and −0.2, respectively. Heritabilities for second lactation milk yield, fat yield and fat content were 0.18, 0.17 and 0.45, respectively, of similiar magnitude to first lactation values. The respective genetic correlations between first and second lactation were 0.96, 0.98 and 0.98, suggesting that production in both lactations is genetically identical. These high estimates can be attributed to the method of analysis, which accounts for culling based on first lactation performance.