Usage of the Blup Animal Model for Estimation of the Breeding Value of Simmental Cows

Abstract

The article presents results of milk productivity analysis and calculation of the breeding value of cows (EBV) of different levels of productivity, using the BLUP ANIMAL MODEL methodology. The studies were carried out on Simmental cows from 14 regions of Russia, the total number was 61816 heads. The levels of development of the main parameters of milk productivity were assessed and a forecast of the breeding value of cows according to a number of parameters was obtained. It was found that productivity of Simmental cows born after 2005 is significantly higher: by +617 kg of milk (P≤0.001) and + 0.06% of protein in milk (P≤0.001), with a decrease of -0.02% of fat (P≤0.001), a service period of -4 days (P≤0.001) and the number of milking days by -20 (P≤0.001) in comparison with cows born earlier. Animals born after 2005 have higher EBV by mass fraction of milk fat with an average productivity of 5000 to 7000 kg of milk, where they have positive values in the range of + 0.0021 ... + 0.0041%, in comparison with cows born before 2005 years, which have negative values -0.0107 ... -0.0020%. As for EBV by mass fraction of milk protein of cows born after 2005, they had negative values in the range of -0.0037 ... -0.0008%, nevertheless, their values were much higher than the values of cows born earlier 2005 (values of -0.0057 ... -0.0028%). Sufficiently high correlation coefficients were obtained, r = 0.568 between phenotypic parameters of milk yield and its estimates, and r = 0.450 between parameters of the mass fraction of fat and its estimates.