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Selection of dairy cattle for disease resistance

Simultaneously with the increase of milk yield in high productive dairy cattle herds, the frequency of «lactational diseases» increased: mastitis, lameness, metritis, ketosis, retained placenta and displaced abomasum. As practice shows, only veterinarian measures to combat diseases are not enough. It is necessary to use the genetic and selection methods for increasing of disease hereditary resistance of dairy cattle. The purpose of such selection is to create «guaranteed» healthy and strong animals with a high level of production and reproduction performance, more cost-effective because of lower costs for the prevention and treatment of diseases.

According to Y. T. Gröhn et al (1998), the cows’ diseases cause significant damage to the industry and they are the reason of premature culling animals out the herd and even their death. High productive cows are characterized by a higher frequency of diseases. The risk of premature culling out the herd due to the diseases ranges within 16,0−32,7 %, in particular caused by lameness – 16,0 %, metritis – 17,1 %, displaced abomasums – 26,9 %, retained placenta – 26,9 %, ketosis – 32,5 %, mastitis – 32,7 %.

In some countries a genetic evaluation of the dairy cattle health traits has already been carried out: Scandinavian countries – from the mid-1970th, the USA – 1994, Germany and Austria – 2006, France – 2010, Canada – from 2014.

A prerequisite for such evaluation is the introduction of routine systematic data collection. The ICAR (ICAR Recording Guidelines, 2014) has developed practical guidelines for data collection, as well as a method for using them for genetic evaluation. The ICAR Guide describes a comprehensive key of diseases diagnosis that includes about 1,000 entry options. In the hierarchical structure of the guidelines, the diagnostic codes are indicated individually for farmers, skilled specialists or expert groups (for example, for specialists in hoof trimming or feed rations formulating). Diseases can also be classified according to their frequency: those that occur once per lactation, once or more during the animal lifetime.

The differences of data collection in different countries and even in herds, incomplete registration of diseases and methods of their treatment, their late phenotypic display and low inheritance, gender constraints, using of indirect health traits and reduction of genetic diversity of the dairy population complicate of selection for diseases resistance. Widespread use of DNA markers for genetic improvement today is limited by the lack of precision in their placement. Therefore, now selection of dairy cattle for disease resistance focuses on the creating and implementation of selection indices.

Due to the negative genetic correlation between milk performance and animal health, the development and using of selection indices, which include health traits, is the most effective method to stop the deterioration or even reduce the frequency of diseases in dairy cattle herds. Of course, countries that select animals based on the health traits of cows try to develop and implement their own selection indices, but their results has not yet been substantially confirmed by milk producers in different countries, since the approbation of such selection indices is at an early stage and large-scale results should be expected later.

In Ukraine, studies on the resistance of dairy cattle to certain diseases have been conducted for many years. However, they were restricted to a certain group of animals, one or more herds. The selection of young bulls and the evaluation of sires on the quality of offspring on grounds of health traits or the creation of resistant cow families were not widely conducted. Worthy note is the study of Ukrainian scientists concerning the cows’ resistance to mastitis, leukemia, and some other diseases. Large-scale studies of total immunity and natural resistance of dairy cattle were also carried out.

Today in Ukraine there is no nationwide database on the frequency of dairy cattle diseases with indicating of treatment process and the obtaining results. According to the «Instruction for the evaluation of dairy and dairy-meat cattle» (2003), the annual report includes data on the cow’s origin, their milk and reproductive performance, conformation, as well as information of the reason of cows culling out. There is indicates the reasons of culling out the herd, including due to diseases (gynecological, udder, legs, digestive organs, infectious). However, this is the general data for cows that have already culled out the herd without their personification. The frequency cows’ diseases, the clarification of diseases, the carrying out of preventive and treating measures, their cost and effectiveness by this «Instruction ...» is not provided.

The basis for the dairy cattle evaluation and the creation of a database based on selection traits is the using Dairy herd management software: «Intesel Orsek», ALPRO and DELPRO from DeLaval, Uniform-Agri, Dairy Plan, «Selex» and other. The databases of the dairy herds are accumulated in the central offices or in the Ukrainian agency of software producers, but it is too early to talk about a particular system.

Some attempts in this direction carry out by scientists of Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetics nd. a. M.V.Zubets of National Academy of Agrarian Science of Ukraine. They develop of program for generalization of results of evaluation, which will allow conducting a comprehensive evaluation of dairy cattle depends on a region, breed, line, sires etc., however, health traits in this program will be considered only reasons of cows culling out the herd.

Progress in the selection of dairy cattle for disease resistance is possible with the active collaboration of milk producers and scientists, the creation of a unified, centralized database, the qualified processing of the results and their introduction into the selection process.

Key words: dairy cattle, health traits, diseases resistance, data collection, selection, selection index.

 

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