Genetic parameters for direct and maternal calving ease in Walloon dairy cattle based on linear and threshold models

Calving ease scores from Holstein dairy cattle in the Walloon Region of Belgium were analysed using univariate linear and threshold animal models. Variance components and derived genetic parameters were estimated from a data set including 33,155 calving records. Included in the models were season, herd and sex of calf × age of dam classes × group of calvings interaction as fixed effects, herd × year of calving, maternal permanent environment and animal direct and maternal additive genetic as random effects. Models were fitted with the genetic correlation between direct and maternal additive genetic effects either estimated or constrained to zero. Direct heritability for calving ease was approximately 8% with linear models and approximately 12% with threshold models. Maternal heritabilities were approximately 2 and 4%, respectively. Genetic correlation between direct and maternal additive effects was found to be not significantly different from zero. Models were compared in terms of goodness of fit and predictive ability. Criteria of comparison such as mean squared error, correlation between observed and predicted calving ease scores as well as between estimated breeding values were estimated from 85,118 calving records. The results provided few differences between linear and threshold models even though correlations between estimated breeding values from subsets of data for sires with progeny from linear model were 17 and 23% greater for direct and maternal genetic effects, respectively, than from threshold model. For the purpose of genetic evaluation for calving ease in Walloon Holstein dairy cattle, the linear animal model without covariance between direct and maternal additive effects was found to be the best choice.