Recording of direct health traits in Austria—Experience report with emphasis on aspects of availability for breeding purposes

Abstract

A project to establish an Austria-wide health-monitoring system for cattle was launched in 2006. Veterinary diagnostic data subject to documentation by law [Law on the Control of Veterinary Medicinal Products (Tierarzneimittelkontrollgesetz)] are standardized, validated, and recorded in a central database. This Austria-wide project is a collaboration among agricultural and veterinary organizations as well as universities, and is also supported by the Austrian government. In addition to providing information for herd management and preventive measures, further objectives of the project include estimating breeding values for health traits and monitoring the overall health status of Austria's cattle. To ensure a high level of participation from farmers and veterinarians, data security issues are extremely important. Valid data are the prerequisite for the efficient use of health records. The challenge hereby is to distinguish between farms with low frequencies of diseases and incomplete documentation and recording. Measures were undertaken to establish a routine monitoring system for direct health traits. A routine genetic evaluation for direct health traits as part of the joint breeding value estimation program between Germany and Austria was introduced for Fleckvieh in December 2010, based on diagnostic data from 5,428 farms with 147,764 Fleckvieh cows. In 2010 to 2011, the reporting of direct health traits as a compulsory part of performance recording and the breeding program was introduced as well. The overall challenge is the availability of sufficient valid direct health data for reliable breeding values. Practical experience gained in Austria in setting up a health registration system, focusing mainly on the availability of direct health data for breeding purposes with its successes and difficulties, is described.

Short communication: Genetic relationships between functional longevity and direct health traits in Austrian Fleckvieh cattle

“…Several estimates of heritabilities of health traits and a few estimates of genetic correlations between them are reported in literature (e.g., Heringstad et al, 2005;Koeck et al, 2010;Fuerst et al, 2011). However, genetic correlations between health traits and functional longevity are not available due to no or limited access to direct health data in most countries (Egger-Danner et al, 2012) and due to methodology constraints. Hence, the objectives of this study were to conduct an approximate multitrait 2-step approach applied to yield deviations (YD) and deregressed breeding values (drEBV) deducted from different statistical models and to estimate heritabilities, genetic and residual correlations between functional longevity (LONG), CM, EFD, CO, and MF in Austrian Fleckvieh cattle.…”

“…Besides a broad range of functional traits such as fertility, longevity, and calving traits, direct health traits gained more importance due to their effects on farm economy, animal welfare, and customers' concerns about food safety recently (Egger-Danner et al, 2012). Since 2010, clinical mastitis (CM), early fertility disorders (EFD), cystic ovaries (CO), and milk fever (MF) are an integral part of the routine genetic evaluation of Austrian Fleckvieh cattle (dual-purpose Simmental; Fuerst et al, 2011).…”

Review: Grass-based dairy systems, data and precision technologies

“…The quantity and type of medicines administered to individual cows could potentially be stored in a central database. However, in most countries, although this information has been systematically recorded on paper, it generally has not been recorded electronically and has not been collated centrally (Egger-Danner et al, 2012). One example country where a significant effort has been put into standardising and aggregating animal health data relating to dairy cows is Austria.…”

Information from later lactations improves accuracy of genomic predictions of fertility-related disorders in Norwegian Red

“…Functional traits, such as fertility and health, have low heritability and show lower accuracy in genomic predictions compared with production traits (Luan et al, 2009;Zhou et al, 2014). Few populations record direct health traits, though several countries have recently started recording health traits as well as production traits in contract herds (Gernand et al, 2012) or in the main population (e.g., Koeck et al, 2012;Egger-Danner et al, 2012). In the Scandinavian countries, disease records have been collected for more than 30 yr, and direct health traits (e.g., mastitis) are included in routine genetic evaluations.…”