Status as of: 2018-04-30

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Germany, Austria and Luxembourg	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Calving	
Breed(s)	Holstein B&W, R&W, MRY and DFR (HOL), Red dairy cattle (RDC) and Jersey (JER)	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Calving ease scores (1 unassisted/easy pull, 2 normal pull, 3 hard pull with or without veterinary aid, and 4 caesarean)
Stillbirth (0/1  live/dead within 48 hours after birth)	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Calving ease scored and stillbirth reported by farmer.
Data are collected via milk recording program, partially as voluntary specification registered in the obligatory animal identification and registration system in national data base	
Time period for data inclusion	Calvings since  calving year 2000	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Calvings from first three parities 	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Calving records from embryo transfer or multiple births are excluded. Age at calving must be 20-40, 30-56 and 44-75 months for first three lactations, respectively. 
Allowed gestation length is between 265 and 295 days. 
(Unknown) calves without birth identification are included in genetic evaluation, as long as calving records are from known cows. 
Missing identifications of sires of calves are filled using service sire ID of dams of the calves from insemination data
Only Herd-Years with at least 5 calvings are included
Only Herd-Years with at least 75 % known sires of born calves are included
Records with no information for stillbirth are excluded whereas  calving ease information can be missing	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	N/A	
Sire categories	All categories of bulls are jointly evaluated (AI, natural service, imported bulls)	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	None	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	MT-ML-BLUP-AM (MT: calving ease and stillbirth jointly evaluated, ML: first three lactations, AM: all cows or calves with data plus their ancestors), with correlated direct and maternal genetic effects  	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	For each trait*lactation combination: herd-year effect (F), region*calving_year*calving_season*sex_of_calf (F), and calving_year*calving_month*calving_age*sex_of_calf (F)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	Snell scores are calculated prior to estimation of the model effects, separately for each class of the fixed effect region*calving_year*calving_season*sex_of_calf	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Ancestors are traced back in pedigree as far as possible. Genetic groups are defined for unknown parents of animals based on breed and birth year and selection path 	
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	-	Routine checks on data quality on raw data and pedigree
-	Routine checks on EBV between evaluations, genetic trends, proof stability overtime
-	Interbull validation method III
-	Mendelian sampling variance test 	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Calving proofs are published as relative breeding value (RBV), with a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 12.	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	All cows born between 2012 and 2014 for Holsteins, RDC, and JER for each breed. 
A change in the cow genetic reference base is made in April evaluation each year.  	
Calculation of reliability	Using a multi-trait effective daughter contribution (MT-EDC) method with a special absorption accounting for the fact that cow and calf share the same phenotypic record	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	AI sires of cows or calves with reliability >= 35%	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3 / April, August and December	
Use in total merit index4	Maternal calving index (RZKm), which is equally composed of maternal genetic effects of calving ease and stillbirth, is included in total merit index for German Holsteins, RDC and Jersey breeds	
Anticipated changes in the near future	None	
Key reference on methodology applied	Liu, Z., F. Reinhardt, A. Bünger, and R. Reents. 2004. Derivation
and calculation of approximate reliabilities and daughter yield deviations of a random regression test-day model for genetic
evaluation of dairy cattle. J. Dairy Sci. 87:1896–1907.
Liu Z, Jaitner J, Reinhardt F, Pasman E, Rensing S, Reents R. 2008. Genetic evaluation of fertility traits of dairy cattle using a multiple-trait animal model. J Dairy Sci 91:4333-4343.
Liu, Z., E. Pasman, F. Reinhardt, and R. Reents. 2012. A multi-parity animal model for genetic evaluation of calving traits enhanced with genomic information. Interbull Bulletin 46:133-142.	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Vereinigte Informationssysteme Tierhaltung w.V. (vit)
Heideweg 1, 27283 Verden/Aller, Germany
Phone: 0049-4231-955-10
Fax: 0049-4231-955-166
http://www.vit.de, email: ge@vit.de or info@vit.de	
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):	Germany, Austria and Luxembourg	
Main trait group:	Calving	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Holstein, Red dairy cattle and Jersey	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Direct calving ease (DCE)	Direct genetic effect of calving ease in 1. lactation	X	.048	0.02362	RBV=(-(EBV-aDCE)/bDCE)*12 + 100 	
Maternal calving ease (MCE)	Maternal genetic effect of calving ease in 1. lactation	X	.039	0.01898	RBV=(-(EBV-aMCE)/bMCE)*12 + 100	
Direct stillbirth (DSB)	Direct genetic effect of stillbirth in 1. lactation	X	.027	0.01022	RBV=(-(EBV-aDSB)/bDSB)*12 + 100	
Maternal stillbirth (MSB)	Maternal genetic effect of stillbirth in 1. lactation	X	.054	0.02007	RBV=(-(EBV-aMSB)/bMSB)*12 + 100	
DCE 2. Lactation	Direct genetic effect of calving ease in 2. Lact.		.026	0.00893		
MCE 2. Lactation	Maternal genetic effect of calving ease in 2. Lact.		.010	0.00335		
DSB 2. Lactation	Direct genetic effect of stillbirth in 2. Lact.		.008	0.00155		
MSB 2. Lactation	Maternal genetic effect of stillbirth in 2. Lact.		.006	0.00120		
DCE 3. Lactation	Direct genetic effect of calving ease in 3. Lact.		.017	0.00583		
MCE 3. Lactation	Maternal genetic effect of calving ease in 3. Lact.		.012	0.00426		
DSB 3. Lactation	Direct genetic effect of stillbirth in 3. Lact.		.006	0.00120		
MSB 3. Lactation	Maternal genetic effect of stillbirth in 3. Lact.		.005	0.00095		
						
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.

Genetic correlation matrix (effect > trait > lactation)

      dCE1   dCE2   dCE3   dSB1   dSB2   dSB3   mCE1   mCE2   mCE3   mSB1   mSB2   mSB3
dCE1  1.00   0.89   0.87   0.74   0.82   0.68  -0.05  -0.17   0.03   0.01  -0.29   0.17
dCE2  0.89   1.00   0.91   0.64   0.83   0.73  -0.06  -0.14   0.08  -0.02  -0.08   0.00
dCE3  0.87   0.91   1.00   0.58   0.77   0.82  -0.08  -0.28  -0.07   0.04  -0.22   0.04
dSB1  0.74   0.64   0.58   1.00   0.80   0.73  -0.03  -0.09   0.10  -0.02  -0.27  -0.01
dSB2  0.82   0.83   0.77   0.80   1.00   0.81   0.06  -0.12   0.09   0.07  -0.10   0.09
dSB3  0.68   0.73   0.82   0.73   0.81   1.00  -0.08  -0.16   0.03   0.08  -0.09   0.11
mCE1 -0.05  -0.06  -0.08  -0.03   0.06  -0.08   1.00   0.76   0.64   0.71   0.62   0.61
mCE2 -0.17  -0.14  -0.28  -0.09  -0.12  -0.16   0.76   1.00   0.91   0.34   0.60   0.66
mCE3  0.03   0.08  -0.07   0.10   0.09   0.03   0.64   0.91   1.00   0.28   0.41   0.58
mSB1  0.01  -0.02   0.04  -0.02   0.07   0.08   0.71   0.34   0.28   1.00   0.63   0.56
mSB2 -0.29  -0.08  -0.22  -0.27  -0.10  -0.09   0.62   0.60   0.41   0.63   1.00   0.47
mSB3  0.17   0.00   0.04  -0.01   0.09   0.11   0.61   0.66   0.58   0.56   0.47   1.00