Status as of:  (2017-04-04)

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)  United Kingdom                     		
Main trait group1         Production (milk, fat  and protein)
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!		
Breed(s)	HOL, SHO, AYR (RDC), JER, GUE, BSW, MON(SIM); all  breeds and crossbreds  evaluated together  in a multi-breed evaluation	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Records are  kg of yield for milk, fat and protein produced within a 24-hour test day period. 305day milk, fat and protein yields also included	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Milk recording data collected by ICAR approved recording organisations (NMR & HUK)	
Time period for data inclusion	 305-day  yields from 1975
Test day yields from 1991
A five generation pedigree information 	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Parities 1  to 3 with data for parities 4 and 5 included as repeats of parity 3	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Sires must be known, birth and caving dates are known and valid
Valid herd book number or earmark number, milk , fat and protein yields are within defined ranges , age within 18 and 120 months, valid recording scheme codes 	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	  NA	
Sire categories	All bulls with progeny information including domestic and foreign AI bulls plus natural service herd sires	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	 None	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Reduced rank ST-ML-RR-TD-BLUP-AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	F: Fixed lactation curves modeled by Legendre polynomials of order four which are nested within calving-year-groups-breed. Age and season effects fitted within calving year-groups  with the later modeled by Legendre polynomials of order 2.  Heterosis and recombination fitted among four main breed groups (Holstein, Friesians, Red breeds and Others). Herd effects fitted linearly within days in milk
R:  Herd-test-day fitted linearly within days in milk,  Legendre polynomials of order three for Animal and Permanent environmental effects	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	Pre-adjustment applied	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Unknown parent are  grouped according to country of origin, selection pathway and  breed type 	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	Interbull evaluations are published for national and foreign bulls. The Interbull evaluations of foreign bulls  are incorporated into their progeny through  adjustment of the parent average	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	See Appendix	
System validation	Extensive checks and validation on input  data and results. Comparison of consecutive evaluations. Interbull trend validation test I, II and III. Evaluations are done within an ICAR certified   process	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Evaluations combined across 3 parities to estimate published 305-day PTA. A weight of 1.0 is given to parity 1  and 0.8 to parities 2 and 3.	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	 2010 Cow base for each breed
                         
2020 using cows born in 2015	
Calculation of reliability	Method of Misztal I., and Wiggans, G.R. 1988  (Journal Dairy Science, 27-32)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations		
Number of evaluations / publications per year	Three times a year coinciding with Interbull evaluations	
Use in total merit index4	Profitable lifetime index (PLI)  =  PTA milk *-0.027 + PTA fat *0.08 + PTA protein *1.71 + PTA lifespan *25.4 + PTA  SCC * -0.19 + EBV  Feet & Legs * 1.13 + EBV Mammary * 1.18 + PTA NR56 * 2.16 + PTA CI * -0.35	
Anticipated changes in the near future	There are no major  immediate changes anticipated	
Key reference on methodology applied	Mrode, R., Krzyzelewski, T., Moore, K., Winters M. and Coffey, M. (2011).The Implementation of Genomic Evaluations in the UK. Interbull Bulletin, 44:173-175
Mrode, R., White, I.M.S and Brotherstone, S. (2006) Investigations into the use of a random regression reduced animal model for variance component estimation and breeding value prediction.  Interbull Bulletin 35:195-199
	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	EGENES, SRUC  Research
Roslin Institute Building
Bush Estate
Midlothian
Scotland, UK
EH26  9RG
Tel:  +44 -131-535-3241
Fax:  +44-131-535-3121
E-mail: mike.coffey@sruc.ac.uk
Internet:  www.egenes.co.uk
	
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 PR

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

Country (or countries):		
Main trait group:	Production	
Breed(s):	HOL,RDC,JER,GUE,BSW,MON	

Trait	h2a	genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milk yield:
	0.55
on combined lactation basis 	557440		
Fat yield:
	0.47
on combined lactation basis	649.8		
Protein yield:
	0.51
on combined lactation basis	468.1		
a	If lactations, or part of lactations, are treated as separate traits, provide heritability estimates and genetic variances separately for each lactation, as well as for all lactations pooled, i.e. for the trait submitted to Interbull.
b	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 parameters for milk, fat and protein yield on 305-day basis with heritabilithies on
 diagonals, genetic correlations below diagonals.

Trait           Lactation	Genetic Variance (kg2)	          Lactation	
		                                                                               
         1                   2                  3       Combined	
                       1
Milk yield             2
                        3
              Combined         	    519126
    629069
    585764
    557440	       0.55
       0.91              0.47
       0.94              0.98              0.51
                                                                    0.55	
                        1
Fat yield               2
                        3
               Combined	    610
    766
    607
    650	       0.42
       0.94              0.36
       0.96              0.98              0.25   
                                                                  0.47	
                        1
Protein yield           2
                        3
             Combined	    411
    551
    545
    468	       0.44
       0.89             0.40
       0.88             0.92               0.35   
                                                                  0.51