Genetic Parameters for Rumination Time, Daily Average Milk Temperature, and Milking Traits Derived from Automatic...

Automatic Milking Systems (AMSs) enable the continuous recording of production, milkability, behavioral, and physiological traits, offering new opportunities for genetic evaluation in dairy cattle. This study aimed to estimate variance components and genetic parameters for milk yield-related traits, milking efficiency traits, rumination time (RT), and daily average milk temperature (MTEMP) using AMS-derived data from 1252 Holstein cows. 65,475 weekly records from a single commercial herd were analyzed using repeatability animal models fitted by restricted maximum likelihood. Heritability estimates were moderate to high for milking time (MT) (0.31), milking speed (MS) (0.38), RT (0.30), and MTEMP (0.28), whereas behavioral traits such as number of milking (NoM) (0.26) and number of refused (NoREF) (0.11) showed lower but meaningful heritabilities. Repeatability was highest for MT and MS (0.77 and 0.79), indicating consistent milking performance across repeated records. MTEMP demonstrated clear seasonal variation, increasing in warmer periods and decreasing during colder months, indicating sensitivity to environmental conditions. Genetic correlations among traits revealed both favorable and unfavorable associations; however, several estimates were associated with relatively large standard errors and should therefore be interpreted with caution. The inclusion of MTEMP as a proxy physiological trait derived from AMS data showed measurable genetic variation, although its biological interpretation requires careful consideration. Overall, the results suggest that AMS-derived phenotypes may contribute useful information for genetic studies of functional traits, but the single-herd structure, limited pedigree depth, and data aggregation procedures restrict the generalizability of the findings. Further multi-herd and genomics-based studies are required to validate these results and assess their applicability in breeding programs.