Genetic aspects of the trial animals in the project 'Pasture based milk production'
2009
Burren, A. | Reist, S. | Piccand, V. | Stürm, C. | Rieder, S. | Flury, C., Schweizerische Hochschule fuer Landwirtschaft (SHL), Zollikofen (Switzerland)
The Swiss College of Agriculture (SCA) in Zollikofen is searching for the ideal cattle type well adapted for a pasture-based milk production scheme. In 2007, the SCA launched a project together with the “KTI' (Swiss Confederation's innovation promotion agency), the IG Weidemilch (Federation of farmers interested in pasture-based milk production), Swissgenetics (major Swiss AI company) and other partners. In this project, Holstein cows with New Zealand fathers and maternal grandfathers were imported from Ireland and compared _ in terms of their suitability for pasture-based milk production _ to the three main Swiss dairy cattle breeds: Brown Swiss, Fleckvieh and Holstein. This paper describes the studied animals in regard to their pedigree, their breeding values, and their genetic ranking within their population of origin, and finally, a series of conformation traits. The selection criteria and the high frequency of occurrence of the fathers and grandfathers in the imported animals indicate that this group is a selected, not a random sample. Moreover, the Irish total breeding value of the imported animals is considerably above the average of the Irish herdbook population. As a result of this selective choice, conclusions on the total Irish or even New Zealand herdbook population are not valid.
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