Genetic Evaluation of Reproductive and Metabolic Disorders and Displaced Abomasum in Czech Holstein Cows

Abstract

We estimated the genetic parameters of the most frequent reproductive and metabolic disorders as recorded on‑line by 55 milk producers in Czech Holstein cows in the Diary of Diseases and Treatments. The dataset covered the period from July 2015 to May 2019. The coefficients of heritability were estimated for retained placenta (h2 = 0.01), metritis (h2 = 0.04), endometritis (h2 = 0.03), cystic ovary disease (h2 = 0.03), parturient paresis (h2 = 0.01), ketosis (h2 = 0.01) and displaced abomasum (h2 = 0.03). Positive genetic correlations different from 0 were estimated between parturient paresis and displaced abomasum (rg1g2 = 0.75), retained placenta and metritis (rg1g2 = 0.61), displaced abomasum and endometritis (rg1g22 = 0.49), metritis and endometritis (rg1g2 = 0.45), and metritis and displaced abomasum (rg1g2 = 0.41). Because each farmer recorded a slightly different portfolio of health data, the genetic correlations with metabolic disorders couldn’t be estimated in most cases, since the number of observations was not sufficient.

Evaluation of score for subclinical ketosis risk in Czech Holstein cows

“…Czech breeders record diseases/disorders of dairy cows through the web application "Diary of Diseases and Medication" launched in 2017 (Šlosárková et al, 2016). Records of metabolic disorders are, however, infrequent (Kašná et al, 2019). Ketone bodies content can be used as an indicator trait (Koeck et al, 2014, Vosman et al, 2015, Belay et al, 2017, as it is regularly measured under the testday milk recording programme, and it reflects the physiological status of the cow (Bastin et al, 2016).…”