Description
The decline in cow fertility has had a negative impact on all dairy producers, especially those that practise seasonal calving with pasture-based dairying. One alternative that is being tried in the United States (US) by a few graziers is to use bulls from New Zealand (NZ) because NZ producers have practised seasonal calving for some time. However, genotype-environment interaction is a concern; genetic correlations that were derived by the International Bull Evaluation Service (2004) between bull rankings from different countries were often lower for NZ than for other countries. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of daughters of NZ Friesian and Holstein artificial-insemination (AI) bulls with daughters of other Holstein AI bulls (predominantly from the US) that were in the same US herd and calved at the same time.
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Genetic Alternatives for Dairy Producers Who Practise Grazing
The decline in cow fertility has had a negative impact on all dairy producers, especially those that practise seasonal calving with pasture-based dairying. One alternative that is being tried in the United States (US) by a few graziers is to use bulls from New Zealand (NZ) because NZ producers have practised seasonal calving for some time. However, genotype-environment interaction is a concern; genetic correlations that were derived by the International Bull Evaluation Service (2004) between bull rankings from different countries were often lower for NZ than for other countries. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of daughters of NZ Friesian and Holstein artificial-insemination (AI) bulls with daughters of other Holstein AI bulls (predominantly from the US) that were in the same US herd and calved at the same time.
