Status as of: 2021-09-20

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	ITALY	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	WORKABILITY	
Breed(s)	HOLSTEIN	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Milking Speed	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Binary trait: the cows identified as below average in milking speed are coded as “slow”, the others “not slow”. The phenotype is collected at the same time of milk recording twice a year.	
Time period for data inclusion	17 years back the evaluation date.	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Parity 1, 2 and 3.	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	DIM 5-305; Herds with frequency of slow cows between 1-30%; Contemporary groups with number of observations >= 20; Production outliers detected with Interquartile range (IQR) method.	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	No extension of records is required	
Sire categories	All	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Single trait repeatability threshold animal model	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Fixed: parity, days in milk (classes) [DIM], season of calving, production (F+P grams) within DIM class (covariate)
Random: herd-year-semester of recording (contemporary groups), animal, permanent environment	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Phantom parent groups are defined separately according to four origins (Italian, Italian unknown, Others, North America) according to birth year.	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	None at the moment as the evaluation is not official yet	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	Use Appendix GE for heritability/genetic variance estimates; 
	
System validation	Interbull Method 3 genetic trend validation, residual and Mendelian sampling checks.	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Relative Breeding Value with average of 100 and SD 5	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change		
Calculation of reliability	ApaX99 method 1	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations		
Number of evaluations / publications per year		
Use in total merit index4		
Anticipated changes in the near future		
Key reference on methodology applied		
Key organization: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Associazione Nazionale Allevatori della razza Frisona, Bruna e Jersey Italiana
Via Bergamo, 292
26100 CREMONA
ITALY
Phone:  +39-0372-4741
Fax:      +39-0372-474203
e-mail: ricercasvil@anafi.it
web site: www.anafibj.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).

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

Country (or countries):		
Main trait group:	Workability	
Breed(s):		

Trait	h2a	genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milking speed:
	0.275			
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.