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Update on Current AIPL Research. Senior research staff. Proposal to include crossbreds. Include all breeds in a single evaluation Report evaluations on individual breed bases Could start in November 2006. Reasons to include crossbreds.
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Proposal to include crossbreds • Include all breeds in a single evaluation • Report evaluations on individual breed bases • Could start in November 2006
Reasons to include crossbreds • Indication of a bull’s value when used for a dam of different breed • Increased reliability of bull evaluation with addition of crossbred daughters • Producer expectations that crossbreds improve fertility and longevity
Revised productive life • DIM > 305 credited • Differential weighting by DIM gives some advantage to cows that calve more often • Heritability reduced from 8.5 to 8% • Influence of fertility on productive life reduced • Female fertility is adequately reported in evaluations for daughter pregnancy rate • Implementation planned for August 2006 along with revised net merit index
Productive life credits 140 120 100 80 Credit (%) 60 40 1 2 3 20 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 Years
Productive life credits – 2006 140 120 100 80 Credit (%) 60 40 1 2 3 20 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 Years
Evaluating male fertility • Calculation of ERCR to be transferred from DRMS to AIPL in May • Data from DRMS, AgSource, and Minnesota • Model and data sources same as for current ERCR • Continued research on possible improvements
Evaluation for stillbirth • Stillbirth – born dead or died within 48 hours • Reported for about half of calving-ease records • AI organizations pay to support data collection and analysis of calving ease • Evaluation and reporting similar to calving ease • To be included in net merit index • Implementation planned for August 2006
Abnormal distribution ofcalving-ease scores • Scored 1 (no problem) to 5 (extreme difficulty) • Most common score expected to be 1 • Bulls with large changes usually have abnormal distributions • Scores combined with 1 if score 2 or 3 most common • Additional herd-years excluded if distribution is unlikely
Evaluation for milking speed • Brown Swiss provided milking-speed data scored 1 (slowest) to 8 (fastest) starting in 2004 • Heritability of 22% • Implementation planned for May 2006 • Some AI organizations may provide data for other breeds
Low-cost parentage verification • New DNA test (SNP) may make parentage validation cheap enough to be widespread • Develop a database and adapt software to check parentage and suggest alternatives for invalid IDs • Determine rate of parentage errors in a sample of herds
Health data • Add evaluations for more fitness traits • Evaluations for disease resistance could assist in prediction of productive life • Common codes for health events based on research data have been developed • Owners to retain control over access to and use of health data
Summary • New traits • Stillbirth • Milking speed • Bull fertility (transferred from DRMS) • Changes to evaluations • All-breed evaluation • Variable credits by DIM for productive life • Investigation of use of DNA for parentage verification