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!	Udder Health	
Breed(s)	BROWN SWISS	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Somatic cell score	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Milk recording 
	
Time period for data inclusion		
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	All 
	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Three testday for herd-testday class
Dim < 380 days
Each cow must have testday from the first lactation	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)		
Sire categories	NS AI P	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 		
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	BLUP-AM-RP-TD-ST	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	HTD (F), Age (F), Dim (F), Year of parity(F)
PE (animal) (R), ANIMAL (R)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	NO	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	YES	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	YES	
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	1,3	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Somatic cell Score	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Rolling base, cows born 10-7 years before the genetic evaluation date	
Calculation of reliability	It’s estimated by an algorithm	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Number of  testday> 120	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3 evaluations: april, august, december	
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		
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 SM

Parameters for national genetic evaluations for udder health traits as provided to Interbull

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

Trait	h2a	genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milk Somatic Cell:
	0.08	0.22 		
Clinical Mastitis:
	-----	-----	-----	
a	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.
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.