Showing 4 results for Farhangfar
H. Farhangfar, H. Naeemipour Younesi,
Volume 11, Issue 1 (spring 2007)
Abstract
A total of 25,471 Iranian Holstein heifers distributed in 523 herds of 20 provinces were used to estimate heritability, genetic and phenotypic associations between a number of traits related to the production and reproduction performance. The Animal Breeding Centre of Iran collected the records studied in this research between 1991 and 2001. The traits associated with production were 305-day, 2x adjusted milk, fat yields and fat percentage and the traits associated with reproduction were age at first calving, number of services per conception, gestation period, calving interval as well as dry days as a separate trait. The heritability estimates were 0.31, 0.23, 0.31, 0.14, 0.03, 0.05, 0.10 and 0.01 for 305-day, 2x milk, fat yields, fat percentage, age at first calving, dry days, calving interval, gestation period and the number of services per conception, respectively. Milk yield was genetically correlated with age at the first calving (-0.14), dry days
(-0.31), calving interval (0.54), gestation period (0.01) and the number of insemination per conception (0.38). Fat yield had negative genetic correlations with age at first calving (-0.16), dry days (-0.23) while it was positively correlated with calving interval (0.44), gestation period (0.11) and the number of insemination per conception (0.20). Age at the first calving, dry days and gestation period had a positive genetic correlation with fat percenateg (0.03, 0.15 and 0.09 respectively) while calving interval and the number of insemination per conception were negatively correlated with fat percentage (-0.21 and -0.25 respectively).
H. Farhangfar, H. Rezaee,
Volume 11, Issue 40 (summer 2007)
Abstract
A total of 179,460 monthly test-day milk records (thrice a day milking) obtained from 17,946 Iranian Holstein heifers distributed in 287 herds and calved from 1986 to 2001 were used to predict breeding value of animals. Monthly test-day milk production was analysed by applying a covariance function in which the effects of herd-year-season of production (HYSOP), age at test day (covariate), additive genetic and permanent environmental effects were included. Orthogonal legendre polynomials up to order 5 (quartic) were also implemented in the covariance model to take account of the genetic and environmental aspects of milk production variation over the course of the lactation. In the present research, breeding values of individual animals based upon 305-day and monthly test-day milk yields were compared. The results indicated that ranking of ten top sires, dams as well as progenies changed as the genetic evaluation of animals switched from the traditional (based on 305-day milk yield) to the new method that was based on the covariance function. Regression analysis of average breeding value of progenies on the first year of their calving showed that the amount of genetic trend obtained from the covariance function for 305-day milk yield was greater than that of the 305-day model (11.607 vs. 3.860 Kg/year) over the period of 16 years of calving. The phenotypic trend for lactation milk yield was 92.97 Kg per year which was statistically significant. This finding indicates that a large proportion of annual increase of milk production of Holstein heifers in Iran has been due to environmental rather than genetic improvement.
H. Naeemipour Younesi, H. Farhangfar , M.r. Asghari,
Volume 12, Issue 43 (spring 2008)
Abstract
A total of 1256 records associated with body weight and Cashmere at different ages (birth and 3 and 9 months) obtained from 754 Cashmere goats were used to estimate the genetic parameters in southern Khorasan province during 2000- 2003. A set of univariate animal models including additive and maternal genetic effects and maternal permanent environmental effects as well as the fixed effects of year and month of birth, sex, birth type and dam age (linear and quadratic covariates) and kid age (linear and quadratic covariates) was fitted. Co/variance components were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood procedure using Powel algorithm in DFREML software. For the body weight at 0, 3 and 9 months, models two, one and three were recognized as the appropriate models. For these models, direct heritability estimates were found to be 0.09, 0.11 and 0.09, respectively. For birth weight and weight at month 9, the magnitude of c2 and h2m were 0.18 and 0.00, respectively. For average daily gains during 0-3 and 3-9 months of age, direct heritability based on the model one was 0.16 and 0.05, respectively. Direct heritability of Cashmere was found to be 0.02. Applying repeatability model, the estimates of heritability and repeatability of Cashmere were 0.16 and 0.53, respectively. Genetic trends for birth weight (0.0175kg/year) and weight at month 9 (0.02065kg/year) were positive and non-significant. A negative non-significant statistical genetic trend (-0.00537kg/year) was found for Cashmere during the period of time.
H. Farhangfar, H. Naeemipour , R. Lotfi,
Volume 12, Issue 43 (spring 2008)
Abstract
This study was undertaken to estimate genetic trend and parameters of Holstein cattle in Khorasan province for milk yield using a spline random regression test day animal model. A total of 32854 monthly test day milk records (twice and thrice a day milking) obtained from 3842 Holstein heifers (progeny of 466 sires) distributed in 125 herds and calved from 2001 to 2005 was used to predict breeding value of individual animals. In the model, fixed effects of herd including year-month of recording, milking times, age at calving (linear and quadratic covariables), Holstein gene percentage (linear covariable) as well as random effects of additive genetic and permanent environment were studied. To take account of the shape of the lactation curve at genetic and environmental levels, cubic spline polynomials were also included in the test day model. Bayesian method by applying Gibbs sampling technique (100000 chains applying RRGIBBS software) was utilized to obtain posterior means of predicted breeding value of animals for milk yield at individual month of lactation. The results showed that mean of breeding value for 305-day milk yield was 52.90 kg (p<0.05). Spearman rank correlations between predicted breeding values at different months of lactation decreased as the interval between them increased. The highest and lowest rank correlations were found between months 8 and 9 (0.998) and between months 1 and 10 (0.312), respectively. Predicted breeding value of 305-day milk had the lowest and highest rank correlations with predicted breeding value at months 1 (0.553) and 6 (0.990), respectively. Regression analysis of average predicted breeding value of progenies in their birth year showed that the amount of genetic trend for 305 day milk yield was 17.75 kg per year, statistically no different from zero (p value=0.165).
