NAV Workshop was held in Copenhagen 14th of January. Over 70 persons participated from all three countries and discussed about breeding goals and how to develop breeding. In group work participants discussed wether to include young stock survival in to NTM and about efficient cow.
Presentations of the workshop are here.
The latest NAV routine genomic evaluation took place as scheduled. NAV carried out genomic prediction for Holstein, RDC and Jersey.
Read more from the NAV newsletter.
The latest NAV routine genomic evaluation took place as scheduled. NAV carried out genomic prediction for Holstein, RDC and Jersey.
Read more from the NAV newsletter.
Nordic trend page is updated
On the Nordic trend page genetic trends for the Nordic cattle breeds are displayed for NTM and sub-indices calculated by NAV. The page has been improved to display trends also for Claw health (in graph “Health”) and Youngstock Survival (in graph “Fertility/survival”).
Genetic trends in a population is given by the average breeding value per birth year. You can choose to show the trends for different populations, sexes, and together or separately for the three Nordic countries (DFS – Denmark, Finland and Sweden).
For both RDC and Holstein cows there has been a slight genetic improvement for both Claw health and Youngstock survival over the last seven year period. For Jersey the same can be seen for Youngstock survival whereas there is no clear trend for the Claw health index.
Reliabilities on GEBV’s are published
In November 2015 NAV starts to publish reliabilities along with the GEBV for genomically tested bulls. The estimated reliabilities (%) for candidate bulls are presented per bred for the main traits in table 1. The differences in the level of the reliabilities can to a large extend be explained by the differences in size of the reference populations for the three breeds.
Table 1 Average GEBV reliabilities (%) for bull calves born in 2014
| Traits | Holstein | RDC | Jersey |
| Yield | 74 | 67 | 67 |
| Growth | 60 | 49 | 28 |
| Fertility | 65 | 47 | 42 |
| Birth | 70 | 57 | 44 |
| Calving | 64 | 43 | 65 |
| Udder health | 68 | 57 | 56 |
| Other disease | 45 | 38 | 26 |
| Claw health | 43 | 33 | – |
| Longevity | 61 | 38 | 37 |
| Frame | 73 | 58 | 63 |
| Feet & Legs | 68 | 54 | 53 |
| Udder | 73 | 55 | 60 |
| Milking speed | 69 | 66 | 60 |
| Temperament | 62 | 53 | 27 |