Genetic parameters of milking temperament and milking speed in Canadian Holsteins

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to estimate genetic parameters of milking temperament (MT) and milking speed (MS) in Canadian Holsteins and to examine associations of bull proofs of MT and MS with other economically important traits. First-lactation data consisted of 1,940,092 and 2,620,175 cows for MT and MS, respectively. Milking temperament and MS were recorded on a scale from 1 to 5 from very nervous to very calm and from very slow to very fast, respectively. The linear animal model included the fixed effects of herd-year-season of calving, stage of lactation, age at first calving, and the random effects of animal and residual. Both single-trait and bivariate analyses were carried out to estimate genetic parameters of MT and MS. For genetic parameter estimation, 20,000 records from randomly selected herds were used. However, for breeding value estimation, all records were included. Heritability values were 0.128 and 0.139 for MT and MS, respectively. The genetic correlation between MT and MS was 0.247. Analysis of bull proof correlation of MT and MS with other traits indicated that these traits were lowly correlated with a wide range of traits such as production, reproduction, conformation, and auxiliary traits.