Status as of: 2016-05-09

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	ITALY	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	LONGEVITY	
Breed(s)	BROWN SWISS	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Protection from involuntary culling during a cow’s lifetime	
Method of measuring and collecting data	The productive life is calculated between the day of first calving and the genetic evaluation routine date.	
Time period for data inclusion	All lactations belong to cows under milk recording system since 1st January 1985. 	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	All lactations	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	The age at first calving should be at least 18 months.
Changing herd cows, and the cows still alive were considered right censored data. 
No left censored data were considered.	
Each herd should have at least 3 calving per year.	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)		
Sire categories	All	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 		
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Direct longevity(DL): SA- sire model using a proportional hazard model following a Weibull distribution for the baseline hazard function.
Gamma= 5.24 
Cows that change herd  after first calving are considered censored at date of changing herd	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Fixed
Time-independent
•	Herd
•	Age at first calving
Time-dependent
•	parity
•	dynamic size of herd_
•	Yearly ME deviation from herd year average
Random
•	Herd-Year effect : time-dependent
•	Sire effect: time-independent	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	No genetic groups
A sire model were performed	
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	Interbull Method 2 and 3 genetic trend validation.	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	CL (100 ±12) 
Higher breeding values means better longevity	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Rolling base, bull born 15-12 years before the genetic evaluation date 	
Calculation of reliability	R2Wei= np/(np+1/2s) (Yazdi et al.)
	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations		
Number of evaluations / publications per year	Follow Interbull schedule	
Use in total merit index4	ITE:
35*Protein kg + 8 *% protein + 10* Fat kg + 2 *% fat  – 5 *scs + +10*ocs  + 10*milking speed + 10*DLO + 5 * ofl – 5 int	
Anticipated changes in the near future		
Key reference on methodology applied	Ducrocq V. – 1997. Survival analysis, a statistical tool for longevity data. 48th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production - 25- 28 August, 1997 Vienna, Austria
Yazdi M. H., Visscher P. M. Ducrocq V., Thompson R. – 2002. Heritability, reliability of genetic evaluationa and response to selection in proportional hazard models. J. Dairy Sci. 85:1563-1577.	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Anarb 
Loc ferlina 204 Bussolengo Verona Italy
045/6760135
045/7156655
ricerca@anarb.it
attilio.rossoni@anarb.it
chiara.nicoletti@anarb.it
www.anarb.it
	
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):	ITALY	
Main trait group:	LONGEVITY	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	BROWN SWISS	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Direct Longevity	Protection from involuntary culling during a cow’s lifetime	X	0.10	0.049	BSW: ((exp(-β)-0)/0.1)*
12+100	

						

						

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 LO

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

Country (or countries):	ITALY	
Main trait group:	LONGEVITY	
Breed(s):	BROWN SWISS	

Trait	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Direct longevity:
	0.10	0.049	DL= ((exp(-β)-0)/0.1)*
12+100	
				
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.
*