Status as of: 26/March/2014

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	IRELAND	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	FERTILITY	
Breed(s)	Interbull: HOL, JER, RDC
National : All dairy breeds	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	a) Reproductive traits
Interval calving to first insemination (CFS, days)
Number of services (NS, number)
Calving interval (CIV, days)

b) Milk production
305 day milk production	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Based on insemination data, calf registrations and milk recording data

CFS and NS based on insemination data from AI technician handhelds and farmer DIY records

CIV based on calving dates recorded at calf registration
Milk yield based on milk recording data 	
Time period for data inclusion	Cows born after 1980/01/01(pedigree at least 5 generations)	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Parity 1 to 3 for CFS and NS
Parity 1 to 5 for CIV	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Cows with known sires
CIV between 300 and 600 days, extended to 800 days where insemination is recorded
Inseminations within 5 days are considered as one insemination 	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	Lactations <305 days are extended to 305 day yields for milk yield	
Sire categories	All bulls with progeny information including natural service sires, domestic and foreign AI bulls	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	None	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	MT AM BLUP	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Age at calving, herd-year season (fixed), animal (random), 
heterosis, recombination, specific heterosis and recombination effects for Holstein xFriesian, Holstein x Montebliarde, Holstein x Jersey, Holstein x MRI 	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	Yes, based on herd-year
	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Genetic breed groups in the pedigree	
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, FF, as applicable, if you participate in the international genetic evaluations of Interbull	
System validation	Data pre-selection and validation before BLUP. Verification of genetic trend and correlation of proofs post evaluation.	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	ETA (days)	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Fixed base. Cows born in 2005 and milk recording in 2007

Calculation of reliability	Approximation of prediction error variances (Tier and Meyer, 2004)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	ICBF Active bull list:
Daughter proven, (Irish & international) where the EBI reliability is >=35%.
2. Genomically tested bulls, where the bulls have an EBI based on Irish genomic data, an EBI reliability of >=35% and a calving difficulty evaluation in the country of 1st origin of >=50%.

ICBF bull search and cow proofs: no restriction 	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3	
Use in total merit index4	EBI = 38% production + 35% fertility/survival + 10% calving + 7% beef + 4% udder health + 6% Maintenance
Fertility Sub-Index = 11.17* Survival(%) -11.97*Calving Interval (days)	
Anticipated changes in the near future		
Key reference on methodology applied	Berry, D.P., Kearney, J.F., Twomey, K., Cromie, A.R. and Evans, R.D. (2010). Revision of the fertility
 and health genetic evaluations for Irish Hostein-Frieisian dairy cattle.  In: 9th World Congress on 
Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Leipzig, Germany, 01-Aug-2010, 0642 p. 1-4  

Olori, V.E., M.H. Pool, M.P.L. Calus, A.R. Cromie, and R.F. Veerkamp, 2003. Joint evaluation of survival and fertility in dairy cattle with a linear model. Proceedings of the 2003 Interbull Meeting in Beltsville, MaryLand, USA. March 2-3 2003, Bulletin 30, page 20-24
Tier.B. and K.Meyer, 2004. Approximating prediction error covariances among additive genetic effects within animals in multiple-trait and random regression models. J. Anim. Breed. Genet 1 21: 77:89.
	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF)
Bandon, Co. Cork, Ireland.
Tel +353 (023)88 20222 Fax +353 (023) 88 20229 aeu@icbf.com
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:	Fertility		
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Interbull: HOL (including RED)
National : All dairy breeds		

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Survival(%)	Re-appearance in lact 2		0.018	0.002		
	Re-appearance in lact 3		0.020	0.0021		
	Re-appearance in lact 4		0.025	0.0028		
	Re-appearance in lact 5		0.018	0.0021		
	Re-appearance in lact 6		0.028	0.0034		
Calving Interval (days)	Lact 1 to lact 2		0.013	77		
	Lact 2 to lact 3		0.014	78		
	Lact 3 to lact 4		0.009	43		
	Lact 4 to lact 5		0.010	42		
	Lact 5 to lact 6		0.013	56		
Calving to 1st service	Lact 1		0.067	46		
	Lact 2		0.039	28		
	Lact 3		0.030	22		
Number of services	Lact 1		0.017	0.0166		
	Lact 2		0.031	0.0304		
	Lact 3		0.031	0.0291		
305-day milk yield(kg)	Lact 1		0.27	155157		
	Lact 2		0.25	187208		
	Lact 3		0.24	210466		
	Lact 4		0.23	191944		
	Lact 5		0.26	221387		
Lifespan			0.07	0.3181		
Age at 1st calving			358	0.07		
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.

 Form GE	Appendix FF

Parameters for national genetic evaluations for female fertility traits as provided to Interbull

Country (or countries):		
Main trait group:	Female fertility	
Breed(s):	HOL	

Trait name	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Maiden heifer’s ability to conceive:				
Lactating cow’s
ability to start cycling:				
Lactating cow’s ability to conceive 1:				
Lactating cow’s ability to conceive 2:	0.037	72		
Lactating cow’s interval calving-conception:	0.037	72		
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.

Genetic and residual covariances for countries with national multiple trait evaluations. Genetic covariances on upper diagonals, residual covariances on lower diagonals.
Trait name	Trait 1: 	Trait 2: 	Trait 3:	Trait 4:	Trait 5:	
Trait 1: Maiden heifer’s ability to conceive						
Trait 2: Lactating cow’s
ability to start cycling						
Trait 3: Lactating cow’s ability to conceive 1						
Trait 4: Lactating cow’s ability to conceive 2						
Trait 5: : Lactating cow’s interval calving-conception