Abstract

Sexual reproduction is a genetic lottery. There is no guarantee that offspring receive a favourable combination of genes from their parents to form their genotype. For animal breeding, the conventional way of selection has been based on phenotyping adults or their progeny. Increasingly, however, dairy cattle breeding schemes are integrating the use of genomic selection of juvenile and adult candidates (Hayes et al. 2009; Pryce et al. 2010). To further increase the intensity of selection and accelerate the rate of genetic gain, we aim to genomically select bovine embryos within one week after in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using gametes from elite parents. The generation of multiple embryos from multi-factorial ... continued

PJ, Fisher, DL Hyndman, MJ Bixley, FC Oback, L Popovic, LT McGowan, and MC Berg

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 72, Christchurch, 156-158, 2012