Genetic Evaluation of Lactation Persistency Estimated by Best Prediction for Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, and Milking Shorthorn Dairy Cattle J. B. Cole and D. J. Null* Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Beltsville, MD INTRODUCTION Cows with high persistency tend to milk less than expected at the beginning of lactation and more than expected at the end. Animals with improved persistency also require less energy in early lactation, allowing greater use of cheap roughage (Sölkner and Fuchs, 1987). The value of persistency increases with lactation length because cows with positive persistencies have higher total yields than cows with average or negative persistencies. OBJECTIVE Calculate (co)variance components and breeding values for best predictions of persistency of milk (M), fat (F), protein (P), and SCS in Ayrshire (AY), Brown Swiss (BS), Guernsey (GU), and Milking Shorthorn (MS) dairy cattle. DATA & METHODS (cont.) The number of active AI sires receiving evaluations for persistency ranged from 4 (MS) to 39 (BS). Table 1. Summary statistics of sire evaluations for persistency of milk, fat, protein, and SCS. RESULTS (cont.) Sire EBV for persistency of M, F, and P were similar and ranged from to 0.67 for M. EBV for persistency of SCS ranged from to Regressions of sire EBV on birth year were near zero (P < ) but in favorable directions for all breeds and traits. Genetic correlations among yield and persistency were low and ranged from (r SCS, PM) to 0.09 (r FAT, PP) (Table 3). Genetic correlations of persistency of M, F, and P with SCS yield were moderate and negative for all breeds (Table 3). Table 3. Genetic correlations of persistency for milk (PM), fat (PF), protein (PP), and SCS (PS) with 305-d milk, fat, protein, and SCS for Brown Swiss. Genetic correlations among PM, PF, and PP were large for all breeds (Table 4). PS was negatively correlated with yield persistencies. RESULTS (cont.) Table 4. Genetic (above diagonal) and phenotypic (below diagonal) correlations among persistency traits in Brown Swiss. CONCLUSIONS As expected, selection for improved yield has not affected persistency of yield. Persistency of SCS decreases as persistency of yield increases. Heritabilities and repeatabilities were similar to those previously reported for US Holsteins with the exception of SCS, which were larger in the colored breeds. DATA & METHODS Persistency was calculated as a function of a trait-specific standard lactation curve and the linear regression of a cow’s test day deviations on days in milk (Cole and VanRaden, 2006). Persistency is phenotypically independent of yield and has a variance of 1. Available data ranged from 27,964 (MS) to 159,898 (BS) records for cows calving since REFERENCES Cole, J.B. and P.M. VanRaden Genetic evaluation and best prediction of lactation persistency. J. Dairy Sci. 89: Sölkner, J., and W. Fuchs A comparison of different measures of persistency with special respect to variation of test-day milk yields. Livest. Prod. Sci. 16: Abstr. M52 TraitNMeanSDMinimumMaximum M F P SCS RESULTS Results from the four breeds were similar, so only Brown Swiss results are presented. Heritabilities ranged from 0.06 for SCS to 0.10 for M (Table 2). Repeatabilities ranged from 0.12 for SCS to 0.19 for M (Table 2). Table 2. Heritabilities, repeatabilities for persistency traits in Brown Swiss. MilkFatProteinSCS PM PF PP PS MFPSCS Heritabilities Repeatabilities TraitMFPSCS M F P SCS