ESTIMATION OF GENETIC PARAMETERS FOR CARCASS TRAITS FOR SIMMENTAL CATTLE IN CROATIA

摘要

The objective of this paper was an estimation of genetic parameters for carcass weight, conformation, fatness class and net gain for Simmental cattle in Croatia. Data of young bulls slaughtered in years 2005 and 2006 with 12 to 24 months of age was taken from the central database of the Croatian Livestock Centre. Three data sets were constructed as follows: 1) data set 1 (DS1) included 80462 records of bulls with known and unknown parents; 2) data set 2 (DS2) had 26245 records of bulls with at least one known parents; 3) data set 3 (DS3) with 6272 records of bulls slaughtered between 12 and 14 months of age. Pedigree for DS1 included a total of 118595 animals, 70415 animals and 19319 animals in pedigree for DS2 and DS3, respectively. Variance components were estimated by REML method as implemented in the VCE-5 program package. Statistical model included region, calving season, abattoir-supervisor interaction as fixed class effects and slaughter age as quadratic regression. Direct additive genetic effect was included in the model as random effect. For carcass weight heritability estimates were 0.10 ± 0.006, 0.13 ± 0.02 and 0.11 ± 0.03 for DS1, DS2 and DS3, respectively. Heritability estimates for net gain were 0.09 ± 0.006, 0.16 ± 0.03 and 0.13 ± 0.03, and for carcass conformation were 0.05 ± 0.006, 0.03 ± 0.01 and 0.05 ± 0.006 for DS1, DS2 and DS3, respectively. Results attained indicate that DS2 can be used for genetic evaluation of the Simmental carcass traits in Croatia. However, in the future more improvement should be done, concerning the constitution of contemporary groups, and special attention should be given to data collection.