Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Switzerland	
Main trait group1 NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Longevity 	
Breed(s)	Brown Swiss	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2 Attach an appendix if needed	Productive life span of cow, days
	
Method of measuring and collecting data	The productive life span is calculated using data from the milk recording system: number of days between the first calving and the last test date. Information from the national animal tracing database is used to determine whether the cow was culled or sold to a non-herd book farm after the last recorded test date. In the latter case, the record of the cow is treated as right censored.	
Time period for data inclusion	Lactations starting 1st of January 1980	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Parities 1 to 6. Records of cows with more than 6 lactations are treated as right censored at the end of lactation 6.	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Minimum number of daughters per sire : 6
Minimum number of (lactation) records per herd and year: 4
Cows that change herds (within herd book / milk recording scheme) are left truncated, i.e. only lactation records pertaining to the last herd of each cow are used to define environmental effects.
If herd size changes by >50 % compared to the previous year, lactation records associated with the respective calving year are discarded. Consequently, records of productive life are treated as either right censored or left truncated.	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)		
Sire categories	90% of data from AI-sires; 10% from NS-sires; all data (AI first and second crop and NS) are used in the evaluations; 80 % of first calving cows are inseminated with young bulls; 60-80 bulls are tested each year.	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	none	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Direct longevity: ST S-MGS survival analysis model, applying a proportional hazards model with a piecewise Weibull baseline hazard distribution, stratified according to lactation stage (4 stages: 0-50, 51-200, 201-320 and >320 days after calving) within lactation number (1 to 6). 
Combined longevity: direct proofs are combined with 5 indicator traits (SCS, udder depth, overall feet & legs, NRR daughters, days to first service) using selection index theory.	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	HYS: 2 seasons are distinguished per year. This random class effect is time-dependent and changes when a cow is transferred, and on April 1 and October 1 of each year. It is assumed that the dispersion follows the loggamma distribution;
Age: At first calving. This fixed effect is categorised in 7 levels:  30, 31-33, 34, 35, 36, 37-38 and  39 months.
ZAS: fixed time dependent effect of geographic zone (4, according to altitude), alpine pasture (during summer: yes / no) and calving season (2: April-September, October-March), with changes at each calving.
Within Herd*year*parity-deviation for milk yield and combined fat &protein content: time-dependent effects of within-herd*year*parity (1 vs. 2-6) deviations for milk yield (5 classes: < 80%, 80 - 94%, 95 - 104%, 105 - 120%, and > 120% of the herd average) and sum of fat and protein content (5 classes: < 94%, 94 - 97%, 98 - 101%, 102 - 106%, and > 106% of the herd average) within parity (2 classes: 1, 2-6) and calving year, based on the age-adjusted 305d lactation records, with changes at each new calving. Cows without standard lactation records in the current lactation are assigned to the same production class as in the previous lactation.
Herd size change: fixed time-dependent effect of herd size change relative to the previous herd*year: 6 possible classes: -50 to -20 %, -20 to –10 %, -10 to 0 %, 0 to +10 %, +10 to +20 %, +20 to +50 % (first two currently not used)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	no	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Unknown parents in the sire-MGS pedigree are grouped together according to breed code (Brown Swiss vs. Original Braunvieh), origin (foreign vs. domestic) and year of birth.	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	no	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	Use Appendix GE for heritability/genetic variance estimates; for multiple-trait genetic evaluations, provide genetic correlation estimates between traits separately.
Use also appendices PR, CO, BCO, SM, LO, CA, as applicable, if you participate in the international genetic evaluations of Interbull	
System validation	check of input/output data, comparison with former evaluations
	
Expression of genetic evaluations If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	RBV: sire solutions are standardized to a base mean of 100 and a genetic (sire) standard deviation of 12, the scale is inverted such that a high risk of culling results in a low RBV.	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Male rolling base, defined by bulls born 8 to 12 calendar years ago with a minimum reliability of 50 %, yearly updated with the spring-evaluation, e.g. 2015: bulls born 2003 to 2007	
Calculation of reliability	Direct longevity see Yazdi et al., 2002, JDS 85:1563-1577	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Daughters with observations in at least 10 herds. In addition a bull has to have at least 10 daughters which have been culled or have a 2nd lactation record.	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3	
Use in total merit index4	GZW (TMI) = 45 % production, 5 % longevity, 13 % conformation, 12 % SCS, 5 % persistency of lactation, 20 % female fertility	
Anticipated changes in the near future	none	
Key reference on methodology applied	Stricker, C., Sharifi, R., Schnyder, U. and Ducrocq, V., An improved model for the genetic evaluation for length productive life, Session 39, 58th EAAP-Meeting, Dublin 2007	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Evaluation Center:
Qualitas AG
Chamerstrasse 56, CH-6300 Zug, Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0)41 768 92 92
Fax: +41 (0)41 768 92 99
e-mail: zws@qualitasag,ch
web site: http://www.qualitasag.ch

EBV’s published by herdbook organisation:
Swiss Brown Cattle Breeders’ Federation Chamerstrasse 56, CH-6300 Zug, Switzerland
web site: http://www.braunvieh.ch	
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 LO

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

Country (or countries):	Switzerland	
Main trait group:	Longevity	
Breed(s):	Brown Swiss	

Trait	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Direct longevity:
	0.1625	0.05187	a = 0.012392; c = -12; b = 0.227750; d = 100	
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.