Status as of: 2009-01-30

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Slovak Republic	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Health 	
Breed(s)	Holstein (Black & White, Red & White)	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Udder Health - Somatic Cell Score
Somatic Cell Score - log base 2 (SCC / 100.000) + 3, SCC is somatic cell count per milliliter	
Method of measuring and collecting data	24-hour production collected by official milk recording system using ICAR methods (The Breeding Services of the Slovak Republic)	
Time period for data inclusion	All test day records (cows which first calved since 1992).
Pedigree information (three generation)	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	First three lactations	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Age of calving for the first three lactations (minimum - maximum range). Range of days in milk (5-365)	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	No extension of records is required.	
Sire categories	All sire categories	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No 	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	ST-RR-TD-BLUP-AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd-Test-Day-Lactation (fixed)
Breed Groups-Age of calving-Season of calving-Parity groups (fixed regressions curves)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Phantom parent groups according to birth year 	
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 trend validation procedure (Method 1, Method 3)	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	BV SCS (adjusted to genetic base and phenotypic mean 3 is added to breeding value) 
RBV for SCS (mean of 100, standard deviation of 12)	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Cows born in 2000
2010 (cows born in 2005)	
Calculation of reliability	According to approximation (from the number of effective daughters)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Minimum 20 daughters in at least 10 herds and at least 75 % reliability for SCS	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	4 times (January, April, July, October)	
Use in total merit index4	No	
Anticipated changes in the near future	Implementation of multi-trait multi-lactation random regression model	
Key reference on methodology applied	Candrák, J., Kadlečík, O., Schaeffer, L. R.: The use of Test-Day Model for Slovak cattle populations. In: Book of Abstracts of the 48th Ann. Meeting of the European Assoc. for Animal Prod. No.3., Viena 1997, pp. 25.

Ryba, Š., Candrák, J., Strapák, P., Huba, J.: STN 466114-1 Odhad plemenných hodnôt ukazovateľov mliekovej úžitkovosti hovädzieho dobytka, Časť 1: Metóda BLUP. Bratislava, 1999

Candrák, J., Ryba, Š.: Genetic evaluation system in Slovak Republic. In: International Workshop on Developing a National Genetic Evaluation System (GES) for Dairy Cattle, Sweden, 2002, 20 p.  	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	The Breeding Services of the Slovak Republic, s.e.
Starohájska 29
852 Bratislava
The Slovak Republic
Phone: ++ 421 2 623 19 911
Fax:     ++ 421 2 623 19 782
e-mail: spusrba@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 SM

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

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

Trait	h2a	genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milk Somatic Cell:
	0.212	0.624	Official proof = BV SCS + 3	
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.