Status as of: 2018-11-19

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Ireland	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Conformation	
Breed(s)	Holstein-Friesian	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Appendix attached 	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Classifiers	
Time period for data inclusion	Cows born since 1983	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	1st Parity animals 	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Only the first record in time from first parity animals scored between 0 and 330 days in milk were retained. Furthermore only animals calving for the first time between 20 months and 38 months of age were retained. Classifications with an unrecorded classifier or where a score for any of the main traits were missing were also discarded. Animals with no recorded date of birth, date of calving, date of classification or sire were removed. All trait values, with the exception of temperament and ease of milking, were standardised to a common variance with field officer by year to account for differences in variance between field officers.
	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	N/A	
Sire categories	All	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	All traits pre-adjusted for difference in variance between classifiers
Composites pre-adjusted to ensure normally distributed data	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	MT AM 	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd-date of classification, linear (F)
Calving month, linear (F)
Age at first calving, linear & quadratic (F)
Days in milk, linear & quadratic (F)
Heterosis, linear (F) 
Recombination, linear (F) 
Animal, linear (R) 	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Unknown parents grouped by year of birth and country of origin 	
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	Data Validation; research into model	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Estimated breeding values standardized to mean and standard deviation of genetic base animals 	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	EBV of Holstein-Friesian bulls born 1994-2003 inclusive 	
Calculation of reliability	Approximation of prediction error variances (Tier and Meyer, 2004)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Minimum of 10 effective daughters	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3	
Use in total merit index4	Not currently used	
Anticipated changes in the near future	Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in the evaluation model	
Key reference on methodology applied	Coyne, J.M., 2012. Genetics of linear type traits in Irish Dairy Cattle. Masters Thesis, University College Dublin. 	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, Brandon, Co. Cork 
Web site: www.icbf.com 	
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):	Ireland	
Main trait group:	Conformation	
Breed (repeat as necessary): 	Holstein-Friesian	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Stature 	1=130cm, 9=154cm	X	0.45	0.511		
Chest Width	1=narrow, 9=wide	X	0.23	0.387		
Body Depth	1=shallow, 9=deep	X	0.27	0.316		
Angularity	1=coarse, 9=sharp	X	0.28	0.346		
Rump Angle	1=high pins, 9= extreme slope	X	0.31	0.403		
Rump Width	1= narrow, 9= wide	X 	0.21	0.262		
Body Condition Score	1=thin, 9=fat	X	0.18	0.399		
Rear Legs Set 	1=straight, 9=sickled 	X	0.09	0.104		
Rear Legs Rear View						
Foot Angle	1=very low, 9= very steep	X	0.09	0.116		
Locomotion	1=lame, 9=even gate	X	0.07	0.074		
Bone	1=thick & coarse, 9=flat & refined		0.19	0.200		
Fore Udder Attachment 	1=weak, 9=tight	X	0.17	0.292		
Udder Support	1=broken, 9=strong	X 	0.11	0.149		
Udder Depth	1=below hocks, 9=above hocks	X	0.30	0.392		
Rear Udder Height	1=very low, 9=high	X	0.21	0.346		
Texture	1=fleshy, 9=silky		0.15	0.229		
Rear Teat Placement 	1=outside, 9=inside of quarter	X	0.21	0.376		
Teat Placement Rear View	1=wide, 9=close		0.26	0.490		
Teat Placement Side View	1=close, 9=apart		0.19	0.237		
Teat Length	1=short, 9=long	X	0.34	0.528		
Temperament	1=nervous, 9=quiet		0.02	0.022		
Ease of Milking	1=slow, 9=fast		0.01	0.012		
Overall Conformation	0.0562*STA+0.0106*CW-
0.0612*BD-0.0314*ANG-
0.0096*RA-
0.0193*RW+0.393*Feet& legs+0.792*Mammary	X	0.28	3.222		
Overall Dairy 	Subjective		0.35	5.233		
Overall Body	Subjective		0.31	4.563		
Overall Feet & Legs	Subjective	X	0.14	2.045		
Overall Udder 	Subjective	X	0.21	4.047		
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.