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!	Workability	
Breed(s)	BROWN SWISS	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	1) Milking speed (Kg/Min)
2) Milkability (linear score)
3) Milk flow2 (Kg/Min)	
Method of measuring and collecting data	1) Electronically flow meters
2) Evaluators of linear traits
3) Herd automatic milk recorder 	
Time period for data inclusion	Data since 1985	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	All	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	All records of cows with records in 1st lactation for milkability
	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)		
Sire categories		
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	BLUP-AM-RP-TD-MT	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	1) Milking speed:  HTD(R), parity*age at calving(F), Dim(F), Milk Yeld (F), Time (F) PE (R)
2) Milkability : HY (R), Dim (F), age at first calving (F), classifier (F)
3) Milk flow2 : HTD(R), parity*age at calving(F), Dim(F), Milk Yeld (F), Time (F), PE (R)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	NO	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	YES	
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	1, 3 	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Standardized to a mean of zero (100) and standard deviation of one (12):
RBV = ((EBV – mean EBV) / standard deviation of EBV) *12 + 100	
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	10 daughters 	
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
ftp.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:	Workability	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Brown Swiss	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Milking Speed	Milk flow recorded by electronically flow meters	X	0.38	0.12879		
Milkability	Classifier data recorded on breeder request		0.17	0.07714		
Milk flow	Milk flow recorded by herd automatic milk recorder		0.57	0.14865		

						

						

						
						
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):		
Main trait group:	Workability traits	
Breed(s):		

Trait	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Milking Speed	0.38	0.12879		
Milkability	0.17	0.07714		
Milk flow	0.57	0.14865		
Temperament				
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.