Status as of: 2017-06-30

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Slovak Republic	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Calving	
Breed(s)	Holstein (Black & White, Red & White)	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Calving ease (direct and maternal) scores from 1 to 4
1 unassisted
2 easy pull
3 hard pull
4 surgery	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Scored by herd owner, collected by milk recording	
Time period for data inclusion	All available data since 2001	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Heifer and cows (6 lactations)	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Exclusion when: twins, ET-calves, minimum limit or maximum limit for age at calving, herds without phenotypic variance excluded	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	No extension of records is required.	
Sire categories	All categories of bulls	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	None	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Threshold sire-MGS model	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd-Year, Year of calving, Month of calving, Parity, Sex, Breed group, Age at calving	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	None	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	None	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	None	
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 trend validation procedure (Method 3)	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Relative BV for direct and maternal calving ease (mean of 100, standard deviation of 12, scale is reversed)
See Appendix	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Bulls borne from 2000, minimum 20 calving (direct calving ease). Bull borne from 2000 with minimum 20 daughters (maternal calving ease)	
Calculation of reliability	According to approximation from the effective progeny number (direct calving ease) or from the effective daughters number (maternal calving ease)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Minimum 10 calving (direct calving ease), Minimum 10 daughters (maternal calving ease)	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3 times (April, August, December)	
Use in total merit index4	No	
Anticipated changes in the near future	Implementation of multi-trait-maternal animal model	
Key reference on methodology applied	Van Tassell, C.P., G.R. Wiggans, and I. Misztal. 2003. Implementation of a sire-maternal grandsire model for evaluation of calving ease in the United States. J. Dairy Sci. 86:3366–3373. 
Strapák P., Ryba Š., Candrák, J.: Hodnotenie priebehu pôrodov kráv na Slovensku. 2011, 1. vyd, SPU v Nitre, Nitra, 77 p, 
ISBN: 9788055206837	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	The Breeding Services of the Slovak Republic, s.e.
Starohájska 29
852 27 Bratislava
The Slovak Republic
Phone: ++ 421 2 62319 911
e-mail: pssrba@pssr.sk
web site: www.pssr.sk	
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):	Slovak Republic		
Main trait group:	Calving Traits		
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Holstein (Black & White, Red & White)		

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Direct calving ease
	Calving ease scores	X	0.072	0.016	a = service bull base
b = standard deviation of service bulls
c = -12
d = 100	
Maternal calving ease
	Calving ease scores	X	0.067	0.008	a = maternal bull base
b = standard deviation of maternal bulls
c = -12
d = 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.
cExpressed 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 CA

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

Country (or countries):	Slovak Republic	
Main trait group:	Calving Traits	
Breed(s):	Holstein (Black & White, Red & White)	

Trait	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Direct calving ease:
	0.072	0.016	a = service bull base
b = standard deviation of service bulls
c = -12
d = 100	
Maternal calving ease:
	0.067	0.008	a = maternal bull base
b = standard deviation of maternal bulls
c = -12
d = 100	
Direct stillbirth:
				
Maternal stillbirth:
				
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.