Status as of: 2019-04-09

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Australia	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Conformation	
Breed(s)	HOL, JER, GUE, RDC	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	See Appendix CO, Animals are scored on a 1 to 9 scale 	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Australian Breed Societies collect Conformation records 	
Time period for data inclusion	Approximately 1985	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Only one record per animal is used	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Cows with unknown sires are excluded	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	N/A	
Sire categories	All sires	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No pre-adjustments	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Single-trait Animal Model 

Conformation = HYSA (herd-year-season-age)  + Animal  + error	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd-year-season-age 
	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	
No adjustments	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Totally of 100 groups were formed based on birth year, breed purity and country of origin.	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	Trait supplied to Interbull contains only Australian data. The published trait contains AUS and foreign information.	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	See appendix CO	
System validation	Method 3 was used for trend validation. The comparison was between breeding values from August 2002 and August 2006. 	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	(eval-base), where base= mean eval of base animals, where eval = EBV on scale of measurements	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	5-years stepwise. AI bulls born between 2002 - 2006 with reliability > 50%.
2021	
Calculation of reliability	Robinson & Jones JDS(1985)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Bulls with 60% reliability and daughters in 10 herds
	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3 per year. January, April and August	
Use in total merit index4	BPI = 1.79 x Fat ABV + 6.92 x Protein ABV – 0.048 x Milk ABV + 3.9 x Survival function ABV + 1.2 x Milking Speed ABV + 2.0 X Temperament ABV -1.07 X Cell Count ABV 0 x Liveweight ABV + 6.94 x Daughter Fertility ABV + 2.289 x MamSysCoeff ABV + 0.817 x UdDepCoeff ABV + 2.258 x OTCoeff ABV + 1.277 x PinSetCoeff ABV + 0.14875 x FeedEffCoeff ABV
	
Anticipated changes in the near future	No changes are planned in the near future.	
Key reference on methodology applied	AAABG in 1985	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	DataGene Limited
Mob: +61 438 761 822 AgriBio Road Bundoora MELBOURNE  VIC  3083 
Email: mshaffer@datagene.com.au
Web site:  www.datagene.com.au
	
1) Either: Production (e.g. milk, fat, protein), Conformation, Health (e.g. mastitis resistance, milk somatic cell, resistance to diseases other than mastitis), Longevity, Calving (e.g. stillbirth, calving ease), Female fertility (e.g. non-return rate, interval between reproductive events, number of AI’s, heat strength), Workability (e.g. milking speed, temperament), Beef production, Efficiency (e.g. body weight, energy balance, body conditioning score), or Other traits.
2) Indicate frequencies per category if the trait is categorical and specify transformation of data if practiced.
3) Use abbreviations for most common effects (see document with list of abbreviations at http://www-interbull.slu.se/service_documentation/General/list_of_abbreviations.rtf) and indicate random (R) or fixed (F).
4) Please give economic weights and indicate how they are expressed (preferably in genetic standard deviation units).

Form GE	Appendix CO

Parameters for national genetic evaluations for conformation traits as provided to Interbull
(all breeds except Brown Swiss)

Country (or countries):	Australia	
Main trait group:	Conformation	
Breed(s):	Holstein, Jersey, RDC, Guernsey	

Trait	Definition	h2a	Genetic
Variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Stature	Height of rump between hips	0.45	0.65	(eval-base)	
Chest Width	Distance between fore legs	0.24	0.20	(eval-base)	
Body Depth	Depth of last rib	0.24	0.24	(eval-base)	
Angularity	As described by WHFF	0.24	0.24	(eval-base)	
Rump Angle	Angle of the rump from hips to pins (called Pin Set in Australia)	0.24	0.34	(eval-base)	
Rump Width	Distance between pins (called Pin Width in Australia)	0.24	0.25	(eval-base)	
Rear Leg Set	Side view of the angle of the hock in the rear leg	0.17	0.14	(eval-base)	
Rear Leg Rear View	Angle of toe out of the rear feet	0.25	0.17	(eval-base)	
Foot Angle	Side view foot diagonal	0.21	0.22	(eval-base)	
Fore Udder	Strength and quality of attachment between body and fore udder – side view	0.24	0.19	(eval-base)	
Rear Udder Height	Distance between vulva and milk secreting tissue	0.27	0.23	(eval-base)	
Udder Support	Cleft of udder (called Centre Ligament in Australia)	0.27	0.24	(eval-base)	
Udder Depth	Distance between hock and bottom of udder	0.24	0.29	(eval-base)	
Front Teat Placement	Placement between front teats – front view	0.33	0.37	(eval-base)	
Teat Length	Length of front teats – side view	0.24	0.45	(eval-base)	
Rear Teat Placement	Placement between rear teats – rear view	0.30	0.30	(eval-base)	
Overall Conformation Score	General Appearance (called Overall Type in Australia)	0.30	0.74	(eval-base)	
Overall Udder Score	(called Mammary System in Australia)	0.30	0.72	(eval-base)	
Overall Feet & Leg Score	Foot Angle(above) is supplied for this trait	0.21	0.22	(eval-base)	
					
a	If repeated records are treated as separate traits, provide heritability estimates and genetic variances separately for each trait, as well as for all traits pooled, i.e. for the trait submitted to Interbull.
b	base= mean eval of base animals, where eval = EBV on scale of measurements