Status as of: 2021-02-04
4-01

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	BELGIUM (Walloon Region)	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Longevity	
Breed(s)	All dairy and dual-purpose breeds	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Survival over successive lactations	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Milk recording	
Time period for data inclusion	Lactation since 1973 (included)	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	All parities	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Age checks for all lactations.
Cows need to have a known first lactation.
Herd has at least one test-day record in the year following the calving year, if not current survival put to censored record.	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	No extension	
Sire categories	All sires	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No preadjustments	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Random regression (RR) lactation survival animal model (AM)	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd – quota year – lactation class (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and later) (R)
Birth year – lactation class (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and later) (F)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No adjustments	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Yes, genetics groups based on selection path, type of breed, degree of Holsteinisation, origin (North-America vs Europe) and time	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	No blending	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	See Appendices GE and LO	
System validation	Trend validations (Method III) & Mendelian Sampling test validation	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Cumulative survival over first 5 lactations, expressed in lactations
Transformed to RBV (average 100, SD 10)	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	SD for all cows having survival records born in 2015 used to standardize to 10 points
In 2025 cows born in 2020	
Calculation of reliability	Based on INTERBULL EDC computations	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	First sire need to have production evaluation
REL ≥ 30 % for: 
•	young sires
•	imported sires if only domestic results
•	imported sires with INTERBULL results	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3	
Use in total merit index4	V€G= V€L + V€F + V€T
V€G= V€L + V€F + V€T
V€L= -0.06 EBVmilk + 3.62 EBVfat + 4.00 EBVprot
V€F 1.79 * RBVSCS + 1.79 RBVlong + 1.79 * RBVfert + 0.89 * RBVCEd + 0.89 * RBVCEm 
-	all functional traits expressed on a 10-unit scale, means of 100 subtracted
-	coefficients only approximate as computations done using selection index procedure estimating jointly V€F, combined RBVlong and combined RBVfert from EBVs for direct longevity, indirect longevity, SCS, indirect fertility and calving ease traits.
V€T= V€M + V€C + V€P
V€M= -4.11 RBVrear leg set + (2.06 RBVrear leg rear view) + (10.54 RBVbone quality) + (9.00 RBVfeet&legs)
V€C=-4.32 RBVoverall development + 11.11 RBVudder corrected final conformation
V€P= 8.64 RBVfore udder + 14.19 RBVrear udder height + 5.55 RBVudder support + 14.19 RBVudder depth + 2.47 RBVfront teat placement + (-11.11 RBVrear teat placement ) + (-5.55 RBVteat length)	
Anticipated changes in the near future		
Key reference on methodology applied	Gengler, N., Vanderick, S., Mayeres, P., Gillon, A. and Croquet, C. (2005) Genetic evaluation of cow survival using a lactation random regression model. Interbull Bulletin  33: 176-180. 
Vanderick S., Croquet C., Soyeurt H., Hammami H., Mayeres P., Gengler N. (2006). Integration of longevity into the Walloon genetic evaluation system. INTERBULL Bulletin 35.	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Organisation responsible for genetic evaluations:
Association Wallonne de l’Elevage Asbl (awé)
4, rue des Champs Elysées
B-5590 Ciney

Computing center
University of Liège (ULiège)
Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (GxABT)
Agriculture, Bio-engineering and Chemistry Department
Animal Science Unit
Numerical Genetics, Genomics and Modeling 
Passage des Déportés, 2
B-5030 Gembloux
Belgium

Phone: + 32/81/622206
Fax:     + 32/81/622115
E-mail : nicolas.gengler@ulg.ac.be  
WEB site for publication of sire breeding values:
              http://www.elinfo.be	
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 GE

Parameters used in genetic evaluation

Country (or countries):	BELGIUM (Walloon Region)	
Main trait group:	Longevity	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	All dairy and dual-purpose breeds	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Direct longevity		X	0.106	0.0797		
						
a	Indicate, with X, traits that are submitted to Interbull for international genetic evaluations.
b	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.
c	Expressed as follows:
StandEval=((eval-a)/b)*c+d where a=mean of the base adjustment, b=standard deviation of the base, c=standard deviation of expression (include sign if scale is reversed), and d=base of expression.

 Form GE	Appendix LO

Parameters for national genetic evaluations for longevity traits as provided to Interbull

Country (or countries):	BELGIUM (Walloon Region)	
Main trait group:	Longevity	
Breed(s):	All dairy and dual-purpose breeds	

Trait	h2	Genetic
Variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Direct longevity:
	0.106	0.0797		
Combined longevity:
				
a	Expressed as follows:
StandEval=((eval-a)/b)*c+d where a=mean of the base adjustment, b=standard deviation of the base, c=standard deviation of expression (include sign if scale is reversed), and d=base of expression.

Table 1 : 	Genetic correlations and genetic variances (on diagonal) across selected lactations (1 to 7, 10 and 17).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	10	17	
1	0.00232	0.850	0.972	0.858	0.694	0.604	0.561	0.525	0.523	
2	0.850	0.00354	0.900	0.514	0.251	0.129	0.074	0.029	0.026	
3	0.872	0.900	0.00386	0.835	0.645	0.545	0.497	0.458	0.455	
4	0.858	0.514	0.835	0.00496	0.959	0.917	0.893	0.871	0.870	
5	0.694	0.251	0.645	0.959	0.00650	0.992	0.984	0.975	0.974	
6	0.604	0.129	0.545	0.917	0.992	0.00650	0.998	0.995	0.995	
7	0.561	0.074	0.497	0.893	0.984	0.998	0.00650	0.999	0.999	
10	0.525	0.029	0.458	0.871	0.975	0.995	0.999	0.00650	0.999	
17	0.523	0.026	0.455	0.870	0.874	0.995	0.999	0.999	0.00650	

Table 2 : 	Residual correlations and residual variances (on diagonal) across selected lactations (1 to 7, 10 and 17).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	10	17	
1	0.0751	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	
2	0	0.115	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	
3	0	0	0.125	0	0	0	0	0	0	
4	0	0	0	0.149	0	0	0	0	0	
5	0	0	0	0	0.210	0	0	0	0	
6	0	0	0	0	0	0.210	0	0	0	
7	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.210	0	0	
10	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.210	0	
17	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.210