Selection against metabolic diseases
Heringstad, Bjørg; Pryce, J.E.; Egger-Danner, Christa; Stock, K.F.; Cole, J. B.; Gengler, Nicolas; Miglior, F.; Bradley, A. J.; Parker Graddis, K.L.; Koeck, Astrid; Bastin, C.; Abdelsayed, M.
Abstract
Abstract: Metabolic diseases, such as ketosis and milk fever, are among the most common diseases affecting dairy cattle. Genetic improvement of ability to resist metabolic diseases can be achieved by direct selection with genetic evaluation based on clinically observed traits, or by indirect selection based on indicators or predictors of metabolic diseases. The most prevalent metabolic diseases in dairy cattle, for which genetic parameters have been published, are ketosis, displaced abomasum, milk fever, and tetany. In this review we present genetic parameters for these metabolic diseases, give a status of genetic and genomic evaluations, and discuss possible indicator traits.