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!	Longevity	
Breed(s)	HOLstein (Black&White, Red&White), RDC (red dairy cattle)
JERsey	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Functional survival of 9 consecutive periods between 1st and 4th calving. Periods are defined as follows within each of the first 3 lactations: 0-49d, 50-249d, and 250d to consecutive calving. Survival of each period is coded 1/0. Observations after the period of culling or censoring are considered missing.	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Calculated from milk recording data (calving dates, culling dates and reasons, last observed date of milk recording, date of data cut-off)	
Time period for data inclusion	Year of birth of cows ≥ 1995	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Lactations 1 to 3 	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	-	Both parents known
-	Date of birth known, valid and ≥ 1995
-	Date of first calving known and valid; other calving dates valid, if applicable
-	Age at first calving within range from 20 to 40 months
-	Calving intervals within range from 300 to 600 days, otherwise the cow record is considered censored from first implausible calving on
	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	N/A	
Sire categories	All categories of bulls (i.e. AI, NS, imported)	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	None	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Linear multiple trait animal model (ST-ML-AM-BLUP)	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd * year * season (fixed, merged step-wise within herd, if too few observations per effect-level ), region (federal states of  Germany, Austria, Luxembourg), milk yield deviation from herd mean * 5-year period, fixed, measured in previous period: for periods from 0-49d, a quadratic herd mean curve is modelled and mean deviations of cow measurements are used as deviation; for the other periods, yield is accumulated up to 250 and 305 days, following the ADR guidelines (ADR, 2006). Deviations are categorized into quintiles and used as a level-effect.	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	None	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Use of full information on relationship of animals; genetic groups for missing parents, but for cows with data, both parents must be known.	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	None	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	Genetic correlations above, heritabilities on diagonal, residual correlations assumed zero
0.024 0.82* 0.45  0.83* 0.69  0.47  0.69  0.62  0.53
      0.016 0.57  0.72  0.87* 0.64  0.66  0.76  0.69
            0.022 0.50  0.54  0.95* 0.41  0.61  0.90*
                  0.019 0.70  0.58  0.89* 0.66  0.65
                        0.024 0.67  0.64  0.91* 0.72
                              0.028 0.50  0.68  0.98*
                                    0.027 0.63  0.50
                                          0.030 0.71
                                                0.034

* values above 0.8 are reduced to 0.8 for better convergence	
System validation	Interbull’s validation method 3 (EBV trend test), Mendelian sampling variance test 	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	EBV of the 9 different survival traits are combined similar to the method of Sewalem et al. (2007) and further described in Heise (2017). They are then standardized to a mean of 100 and a genetic standard deviation of 12.
Risk probabilities (conditional on survival up to respective period) used to compute index (from first to last):
0.0509, 0.0779, 0.1099, 0.0420, 0.0928, 0.1353, 0.0703, 0.1179, 0.1611	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Cow base population, consisting of cows born from (year of evaluation- 6) to (year of evaluation-4 )	
Calculation of reliability	Reliabilities are approximated using the method of Liu et al. (2009) for an approximate linearization of the above described non-linear index. Weights assumed for reliability approximation (from first to last):
0.23, 0.20, 0.16, 0.13, 0.11, 0.08, 0.05, 0.04, 0.01	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	-	Daughter observations from ≥10 herds	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3 / April, August and December 	
Use in total merit index4	Longevity index RZN has 20% weight on the German total merit index RZG	
Anticipated changes in the near future	None 	
Key reference on methodology applied	ADR (German Cattle Breeders’ Federation). 2001. ADR-Richtlinie 1.1 für das Verfahren der Durchführung der Milchleistungs- und Qualitätsprüfung (MLP) bei Rindern. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://www.adr-web.de/services/files/richtlinien-empfehlungen/ADR-Richtlinie%201.1.pdf
Heise, J. 2017. Genetic evaluation of longevity in dairy cattle - A new model for an old trait. PhD Thesis.  https://ediss.uni-goettingen.de/handle/11858/00-1735-0000-0023-3F7C-2
Heise, J., Z. Liu, K.F. Stock, S. Rensing, F. Reinhardt, and H. Simianer. 2016. The genetic structure of longevity in dairy cows. J Dairy Sci 99:1253-1265. doi: 10.3168/jds.2015-10163
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. doi:10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(04)73348-2.
Sewalem, A., F. Miglior, G.J. Kistemaker, P. Sullivan, G. Huapaya, and B.J. Van Doormaal. 2007. Short Communication: Modification of Genetic Evaluation of Herd Life from a Three-Trait to a Five-Trait Model in Canadian Dairy Cattle. J. Dairy Sci. 90:2025–2028. doi:10.3168/jds.2006-719.	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	vit, Department of Biometrics and Genetic Evaluation,
Heinrich-Schröder-Weg 1, 27283 Verden/Aller, GERMANY
Telefon: 0049 - 4231 - 955 10
Fax: 0049 - 4231 - 955 166
e-mail: ge@vit.de or info@vit.de,  website: http://www.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 LO

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

Country (or countries):	Germany, Austria and Luxembourg 	
Main trait group:	Longevity	
Breed(s):		

Trait	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Direct longevity:
	0.088	144		
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.

Attachment 1: Conditions for use of data in genetic evaluation for longevity

Criterion	Value	

Start of data	
Germany West: cow in herd on or after 1st Jan. 1985, 
Germany East: cow in herd on or after 1st Jan. 1991, 
additionally: 1st calving from 1980 until 12 months before data collection 	

1.	Minimum longevity	
Minimal 46 days in 1st Lactation	

Minimum possible LPL	
Minimal 12 months before cut-off-date or change of herd	

Milk yield	
Protein-kg must be known	

Calving age	
1st lact.: 610 to 1320 days = 20 to 43 months
2nd lact.: 1000 to 2135 days = 33 to 70 months	

Culling date 	
At most 750 days after last known calving date 	

Attachment 2: Combined functional herd life
The  direct functional longevity is combined with 5 predictor  traits using the selection index theory (amount of information of every trait is taken into account per bull) to increase reliability of longevity: 

                                      	rg with direct longevity
(All EBV on a biological favourable scale, i.e., higher values mean bette)
Holstein                     Red dairy cattle & other breeds 
body depth			 -0.27                                   -0.29
fore udder attachment        	  0.33                                    0.27
feet & leg score 	     	  0.28                                    0.11
RBV SCS		 	 0.44                                     0.49
maternal calving ease		 0.16                            	      0.18