Abstract

Dairy cow fertility is currently measured using two traits: the proportion of cows mated within 21 days of the start of mating (PM21) and the proportion of cows that calve within 42 days of the start of calving (CR42). These traits indirectly measure a cow’s genetic propensity to return to a fertile state after calving. Both PM21 and CR42 have low heritability (0.05 and 0.03, respectively) and fertility is suspected to have much stronger genetic drivers than indicated by these lowly heritable components. The purpose of this study was to explore genetic and environmental factors that contribute to dairy cow fertility using a stochastic simulation model. The model traces the reproductive life of cows from birth until their second calving date using environmental and genetic variables to simulate fertility phenotypes. The model demonstrated that even when significant genetic variation was simulated in underlying fertility traits, this variation appears only weakly as genetic effects using the current fertility traits evaluated for genetic selection purposes. Potential alternative traits (e.g. gestation length, heifer puberty trait, strength of oestrus expression or post-partum anoestrous interval) were shown to have potential to add value when identifying sires whose daughters calve earlier in the season.

NA, Dennis, K Stachowicz, B Visser, FS Hely, PR Amer, S Meier, and CR Burke

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 75, Dunedin, 42-47, 2015