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Method and effects of incorporating foreign information into United Kingdom production evaluations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2010

R. A. Mrode
Affiliation:
Animal Data Centre, Fox Talbot House, Greenways Business Park, Chippenham SW15 1BN
G. J. T. Swanson
Affiliation:
Animal Data Centre, Fox Talbot House, Greenways Business Park, Chippenham SW15 1BN
M. S. Winters
Affiliation:
Animal Data Centre, Fox Talbot House, Greenways Business Park, Chippenham SW15 1BN
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Abstract

Countries, which import a significant amount of semen, embryos and animals, are faced with the problem of how properly to evaluate the animals in the national evaluation system when information on the foreign parents is generally missing. Additional problems arise when the foreign parents obtain an evaluation, usually on the basis of progeny, in the country of import with the result that there are two published evaluations for the animals in question. This paper presents a post-iterative method of incorporating foreign information into home country evaluations. The foreign information is initially converted to the same scale and base as in the home country using procedures recommended by the International Bull Evaluation Service. The method consists essentially of calculating a combined evaluation for animals with home and foreign information as a weighted average of yield deviations, parent averages and progeny contributions from the foreign and home countries. The combined evaluations are used to adjust the evaluations of progeny on the basis of formulae derived from the usual mixed model equations. The same principles were used to combine reliabilities from the respective home and foreign reliabilities. The results from the application of the method to the United Kingdom (UK) Holstein Friesian population are presented. There was re-ranking of both bulls and cows, especially foreign bulls with few UK daughters.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 1996

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