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Relationship between individual herd-heritability estimates and sire misidentification rate
C D Dechow1, H D Norman, N R Zwald
1Department of Dairy and Animal Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. cdechow@psu.edu
Journal of Dairy Science
|March 20, 2008
Summary
Estimating herd heritability in dairy cattle helps identify herds with inaccurate sire identification. Lower heritability suggests potential data errors, improving genetic evaluations.
Area of Science:
- Animal Genetics
- Dairy Science
- Quantitative Genetics
Background:
- Accurate genetic evaluations in dairy cattle rely on precise parentage information.
- Sire misidentification can introduce bias into estimated breeding values.
- Dairy Herd Improvement programs collect vast amounts of performance data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate within-herd heritabilities for milk, fat, protein yield, and somatic cell score (SCS).
- To determine the relationship between individual herd heritability and sire misidentification rates.
- To assess the utility of herd heritability estimates for identifying data quality issues.
Main Methods:
- Calculated individual herd heritabilities using daughter-dam and daughter-sire predicted transmitting ability (PTA) regression.
- Utilized large datasets from Dairy Herd Improvement programs (over 4.7 million records in 2000 and 7 million in 2006).
- Employed regression models incorporating fixed and random effects, including herd-specific factors.
Main Results:
- Average daughter-dam heritability ranged from 0.21 to 0.73.
- Average daughter-sire heritability ranged from 0.10 to 0.42.
- Daughter-sire herd heritability showed a stronger negative correlation with sire misidentification rates (-0.38 to -0.50).
Conclusions:
- Herd heritability can be reliably estimated using simple regression techniques across numerous herds.
- Negative correlations between herd heritability and sire misidentification rates indicate potential data inaccuracies.
- Herd heritability estimates can serve as a valuable tool for detecting herds with unreliable progeny testing data.
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