Abstract
A simulation study was conducted to assess the impact of different strategies of allocation of bovine somatotropin (BST) to dairy cows on the genetic gain in a conventional breeding scheme. Four main alternatives were considered, random allocation, treatment restricted to certain herds or offspring groups and treatment correlated to the phenotypic performance. Simulated data were analyzed accounting for complete or incomplete information on treatment. In a majority of scenarios investigated, the accuracy of sire and dam evaluation as well as the genetic progress are not detrimentally affected. If not all information on treatment is available or only the phenotypically best cows are treated, it might be advantageous not to account for treatment in the analysis. A problem is seen with respect to bulldam selection, as treated cows frequently are over-represented in the selected group of bulldams and treating cows in order to “produce” bulldams is shown to affect the genetic gain considerably. This might be solved by a transfer of bulldam selection into nucleus breeding stocks.
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