Breeding for disease resistance in Holstein cattle in 2023

ZAVADILOVÁ, Ludmila, KAŠNÁ, Eva, KRUPOVÁ, Zuzana, KUČERA, J., FLEISCHER, P. and ŠLOSÁRKOVÁ, Soňa. Breeding for disease resistance in Holstein cattle in 2023. Chovatelské listy, 2023, vol. 2023(1), p. 21-25. ISSN .
Year2023
CathegoryOthers
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Abstract

The manuscript deals with the breeding of Holstein cattle aimed at improving resistance to diseases, which in the Czech Republic is being introduced in Holstein cattle into the routine estimation in 2023. It describes the importance of the web application Diary of disease and medication, the methods used to estimate breeding values for clinical mastitis, three group traits of hoof diseases, and a health index determined based on these four breeding values. Reliabilities of breeding values for health traits are highest for bulls with daughters, genomic animals, cows and bulls, and cows with a healthy phenotype. There is no obvious dependence between the selection index of Holstein cattle and the health index. An animal with a high Holstein selection index (SIH) can have high and low values for the health index and breeding values for health traits, as can an individual with a lower SIH value. When comparing the actual diagnoses in the daughters of bulls that were evaluated with a high health index at the beginning of 2021 or vice versa, it is shown that the number of daughters with the disease and the total number of diagnoses for the given trait is significantly higher in the group of bulls rated worse, i.e. with a low health index. The number of registered diagnoses for their daughter is also higher. The routine introduction of evaluation of health characteristics in the Czech Republic is a great success for domestic breeders. If it can be maintained and further expanded, it will significantly increase the reputation and competitiveness of Czech breeders abroad – especially in connection with genomics. Although genomics is an excellent procedure that improves and accelerates breeding progress, it cannot be dispensed with without broadly conceived control of productivity and knowledge of the manifestation of traits in local cattle populations; on the contrary, it is completely dependent on them.