Abstract:
This study was designed to estimate genetic parameters and breeding values (EBVs) for test day and 305-day milk yields, and to compare the results of both analyses using data file containing 645 complete first lactations of at least 150 days. Variance component estimates, namely additive, permanent environmental and residual, for 305-day milk yields using 305-day lactation model (305DLM) and for test day milk yields using test day models (TDMs) were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood (REML) method. Residual variance from the model that defined contemporary group with herd-test date (HTD) was 15.64% lower than the defined contemporary herd-year-season (HYS) group. Heritability estimates of TD milk yields from all TDMs were lower than or close to the corresponding estimates for 305-day milk yields. Genetic correlation between TD milk yields and 305-day milk yield were high (rgg>0.76). Correlations between TDM and 305DLM that calculated by Pearson correlations and Spearman rank correlations were high (r>0.87) for both full data and reduced data. These analyses showed that EBVs for TD milk yields were highly correlated with EBVs for 305-day milk yields. Therefore, the results can be concluded that TD milk yields may replace the 305-day milk yields for genetic evaluation of dairy cattle using suitable TDMs.