Retaining as the #1 RZG B&W Daughter Proven bull with +155 RZG and +1753 kgM is DG Casino.  Casino is a DG Charley son out of DG Madrid. The #1 RZG R&W genomic sire is Sputnik RDC son Skyliner at +164 RZG. He is followed by Goliat RDC son Glamour at +163 RZG. Rounding out the top 3 is De Volmer DG Rammstein at +160 RZG with +126 RZE.  Remarkable is the #1 RZG Black & White Interbull Dtr Proven sire Cogent Supershot son Topshot at +155 RZG.  During this index run there has been an adjustment in the German breeding value. It is expected that each bull has dropped 5 or 6 points. 

• GERMANY – R&W – Interbull Genomics – 04/22
• GERMANY – R&W – Interbull Dtr Proven – 04/22
• GERMANY – R&W – Domestic 99% R Bulls – 04/22
• GERMANY – R&W – Domestic Genomics – 04/22
• GERMANY – R&W – Dtr Proven – 04/22​
• GERMANY – B&W – Interbull Genomics – 04/22
• GERMANY – B&W – Interbull Dtr Proven – 04/22
• GERMANY – B&W – Domestic 99% R Bulls – 04/22
• GERMANY – B&W – Domestic Genomics – 04/22
• GERMANY – B&W – Dtr Proven – 04/22

There is a new #1 ICO sire in Spain, his name is CMP Allure De Chanel at +5277 ICO.  He is followed by the German bull: Sunrise at +5275 ICO. Followed by Spanish bull: Global Red at +5250 ICO. The number one daughter proven bull is this index run is Apolo at +4308 ICO. In second follows the German bull Wilder Mocca at +4229 ICO and making the Top three complete with Progenesis Outlast at +4192 ICO.

• SPAIN – Top ICO genomic bulls INTERBULL 04/22
• SPAIN – Top ICO bulls proven INTERBULL – 04/22
• SPAIN – ICO – National genomic bulls 04/22
• SPAIN – ICO – National daughter proven 04/22
• SPAIN – ICO – Dtr proven – ESP owned bulls 04/22

Upcoming changes to AHDB’s dairy genetic indexes reflect changing economic conditions as well feedback gathered from farmers. Amendments to dairy genetic evaluations will lead to a slight shift in the running order in the AHDB bull rankings published on 5 April.

All three major selection indexes – profitable lifetime index (£PLI), spring calving index (£SCI) and autumn calving index (£ACI) – will see updates to reflect increases in input costs and the price of milk. Each index’s formula has been adjusted to reflect changing economic conditions, AHDB explains, as well as the needs of dairy processors and farmers.

Most notable financial changes are in feed, labour and replacement costs, as well as in the value of cull cows since the last update in 2018. The changes result from consultation across the industry, undertaken by AHDB, working with market specialists and through the Genetics Advisory Forum (GAF).

Stakeholders in the forum include farmers, breeding companies, vets, milk processors, the RSPCA, milk recording organisations and breed societies. These participants collectively review the genetic progress dairy breeds are making, the long-term market outlook for inputs and output, and they fine-tune the three economic indexes as the need arises.

The £PLI, £ACI and £SCI indexes were last updated in 2018 and before that, in 2014, according to the levy organisation. Each continues to be formulated to suit a manufacturing contract, reflecting both an industry shift in this direction and some value in producing components, even in liquid markets.

Feed advantage
To address the rising significance of feed cost, feed advantage (FAdv) will also be added to £PLI. A combination of maintenance index and a genomic prediction of feed efficiency, FAdv was developed from extensive trials over many decades measuring actual feed intake in relation to a cow’s size and milk production.

Currently only available for the Holstein breed, which took part in these trials, all other dairy breeds will continue to use the maintenance index which acts as a proxy and is based on a prediction of feed efficiency based on the size of the cow. Maintenance will also continue to be used in the across-breed indexes, £ACI and £SCI, for all breeds.

Digital dermatitis
Another change to all three indexes and all breeds is the inclusion of the genetic evaluation for digital dermatitis (DD), AHDB confirms. This follows work at the University of Liverpool which showed the AHDB genomic evaluation for DD was very effective in predicting the odds of a cow having DD. As a result, DD will now be included alongside lameness advantage (LAdv), which was introduced in 2018. By using both LAdv and DD indexes in harmony, AHDB says more rapid genetic benefits can be achieved to help tackle lameness, as they offer distinct and different benefits.

£SCI only
For the £SCI only, additional changes will be made with the April proof run, the organisation explains. This will see bulls whose daughters are heavier penalised more severely for spring block calving, grazing based systems. This move has been driven by feedback from farmers running grazing systems, many of whom place a higher value – over and above purely the additional maintenance feed cost – on the lack of soil damage and ease of management smaller cows can bring. Marco Winters, AHDB head of animal genetics, says cattle breeding is a long-term business and the economic model which sits behind the changes considers the outlook five to 10 years ahead.

“At the time of the 2022 update, we see more volatility in the market for inputs than on previous occasions,” he says. “However, we don’t know how sustained current prices will be, so we have to base our decisions on longer term projections, but will continue to carry out regular reviews and may have to make adjustment if circumstances dictate.”

Source: Farming UK

2022

Previous base change update documents:

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008

Flexible testing and use of milk-only records

P.M. VanRaden, G.C. Fok, L.R. Bacheller, G.B. Jansen, E.L. Nicolazzi, and J.A. Carrillo

Effective with the April 5, 2022 evaluations, edit programs were revised to begin using milk-only records in the multi-trait evaluation of yield traits. Other trait groups such as cow fertility and health also will have a greater number of usable records, because edits for those traits require usable milk yield records. Previously, national genetic evaluation software required that fat yield was recorded, and milk-only records were excluded. We estimate that this edit adds nearly 900,000 milk-only records for the relevant traits.

Cows with milk-only records will have evaluation code set to 5 in byte 110 of format 105.

Milking systems often can accurately measure and record milk volume, but inline estimation of milk components is more difficult. Since 1998 when data collection ratings (DCR) were introduced, milk and fat received the same weight calculated as an average of the DCR values for milk and components, instead of separate weights, because of software limitations. Most milk-only records are unsupervised and therefore get the same reduced weights and extra edits for percent milk shipped and percentage of valid sire ID as other owner-sampler herds.

Lactation weights for milk, fat, and protein now use three separate DCR based on the testing patterns and correlations among test days within lactations. Herd variance ratios had been estimated from one trait (milk yield since 1992 and then fat yield since 2007) and applied to adjust all three traits (milk, fat, and protein). To include milk-only records, separate trait-specific variance adjustments and weights were developed and applied to each trait. New and official genetic evaluations were compared from December 2020 data. Numbers of usable lactation records were 98,269,605 for milk, 97,393,419 for fat, and 78,044,073 for protein, indicating that 876,186 milk-only records were added. Correlations of new with previous Predicted Transmitting Abilities (PTAs) were > 0.9995 across all bulls for all three traits and were > 0.997 for bulls born since 2007 with > 50% reliability. The standard deviation (SD) of PTA increased slightly by 2.4% for milk, 0.1% for fat, and 0.4% for protein but reliability also increased slightly from the extra records.

Further research could help adapt to more flexible testing options and automated data collection that continue to increase in popularity.

Type composite update on non-Holstein breeds

By Gary Fok and Paul VanRaden

Type composite definitions for Body Weight Composite (BWC), Udder Composite (UDC) and Feet and Legs Composite (FLC) were updated in the CDCB system to match those of breed associations, per the table below. The standard deviation (SD) of BWC was revised upward to match the SD for Holstein. The genetic SD for rump angle (RAN) in Jersey was corrected according to an issue in the value being used previously in the multi-trait evaluation. The RAN SD update will have some impact on correlated traits like Rear Teat Rear View (RTR) and Rear Teat Side View (RTS) of old bulls, since these traits have been measured recently.

The change in weighting of traits on composites will affect NM$ ranking of animals, as the three composites have a combined 13.2% relative weighting on NM$. Previously BWC had less emphasis in the Jersey population, but the SD of BWC is now increased to make the emphasis more consistent with the emphasis already received in the Jersey Performance Index (JPI). On a test run based on the December 2021 evaluation, the average impact on Jersey AI bulls ranged from -10$ to -25$ on proven and young genomic bulls, respectively. However, it’s important to underline the reported NM$ variation included all the changes that will be implemented in April 2022 evaluation, and not just the type composite updates. A larger reduction in NM$ was observed in the crossbred Jersey population.

New phenotypic editing on fertility evaluations

By Asha Miles, Jana Hutchinson, and Paul VanRaden

The use of embryo transfer (ET) technology in U.S. herds has sharply increased over the years. The U.S. fertility trait evaluations have accounted for reported embryo donors or recipients since 2010, but most embryo events are not yet reported. Unreported ET reproductive events remain difficult to identify, and their systematic accumulation can lead to biased fertility evaluations of cows and bulls. New edits introduced in April 2022 now exclude fertility records from herds with large amounts of ET births but a low number of ET reproductive events. The new edits will directly impact evaluations for Sire Conception Rate (SCR), Heifer Conception Rate (HCR), and Cow Conception Rate (CCR), and also indirectly affect Daughter Pregnancy Rate (DPR). The PTA correlation of proven bulls after the implementation of this edit is over 99%. Individual animals – especially elite young bulls with early daughter records – might be highly impacted, especially by the new edit on HCR/CCR.

International evaluations processing change in policy for Heifer and Cow Conception Rate

By Ezequiel Nicolazzi and Paul VanRaden

When the Intergenomics exchange was established in 2012, a reduction in prediction accuracy for Heifer Conception Rate (HCR) and Cow Conception Rate (CCR) was observed in Brown Swiss, because of low Multiple Across Country Evaluations (MACE) correlations with some countries. As a conservative measure, only evaluations 15% more reliable than U.S. predictions were retained as phenotypes for genomic evaluations. Foreign evaluations below that threshold were discarded and the Predicted Transmitting Abilities (PTAs) were replaced for their parent averages (PAs).

Although the 15% reliability threshold is still considered valid, many of those bulls now have (direct or indirect) domestic evaluations that could be used instead of their less reliable PA. Therefore, effective with the April 2022 evaluation, PTAs for animals with foreign evaluations below the 15% threshold will be replaced with domestic PTAs where available. In a test run based on the December 2021 evaluation, only a small fraction of the population was affected directly. Since the reference population is affected, there is some impact on the overall evaluation, both as an average and as single-animal variation.

International evaluations processing change in policy for DPR

By Ezequiel Nicolazzi and Paul VanRaden

In the international evaluations for Daughter Pregnancy Rate (DPR), a determination is made whether direct traits or indirect traits will be used for foreign animals. With the April 2022 evaluations, this decision will be streamlined to consider only two trait reliabilities, compared to the previous method of comparing reliabilities of several fertility traits. Our test run shows this change had the desired effect to include many more animals with the direct DPR trait in the evaluation.

Previously, the international evaluations for DPR have compared reliabilities of several fertility traits to decide if direct or indirect traits with higher reliability should be used for foreign animals. Note that DPR was initially used as a substitute for another fertility trait until 2012 when U.S. bulls calving to first insemination PTAs were estimated and provided to Interbull: https://aipl.arsusda.gov/reference/changes/eval1212.htm

In a test run based on the December 2021 evaluation, this change in policy had the desired effect to include many more animals with the direct DPR trait in the evaluation. Most of the animals changing evaluation were old-to-very old animals, with Ayrshire being the breed most affected. Nearly 2,000 over a total of 15,970 bulls got their DPR evaluation modified, with an average change of 0.1, but with many old bulls now receiving an evaluation vs. getting a PA in December. In Holstein and Jersey, the animals affected were 8,626/151,189 and 584/13,388, with an average variation for the affected bulls of -0.066 (range: -2.3/2.0) and -0.064 (range:-1.8/2.1), respectively.

Source: uscdcb.com

The national cooperator database hit a new mark on February 19, 2022, with six million genotypes recorded.
 
This feat is possible through collaboration between the U.S. and global partners, and among dairy producers, genotyping labs, nominating organizations, international partners, CDCB and the Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory (AGIL).
 
The first U.S. Holstein sires were genotyped in 2008. After seven years, in August 2015, one million genotypes were recorded in the national cooperator database. Since then, the database has grown more rapidly, with more than one million genotypes per year. Genotyping of females has soared in recent years, as genomic evaluations have become an indispensable tool for mating, culling and herd management decisions in herds worldwide. The vast majority — 91% of all genotyped animals — in the CDCB database are female.

 
This set of dairy phenotypic and genotypic data has been managed by CDCB since 2013. As the world’s largest animal database and having robust quality standards, the national cooperator database has set the gold standard worldwide and is a strategic asset for U.S. dairy.