Estimation of (co)variance components for birth weight in Nellore cattle using alternative data editing criteria

• Autor(a) principal: dos Santos Correia, Luiz Eduardo Cruz [UNESP]
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: da Silva Faria, Ricardo António [UNESP], de Oliveira, Matheus Henrique Vargas [UNESP], Aspilcueta Borquis, Rusbel Raúl [UNESP], Curi, Rogério Abdallah [UNESP], de Vasconcelos Silva, Josineudson Augusto II [UNESP]
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/rda.13781; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/202016
• topic: Bayesian inference; Bos taurus indicus; contemporary group; growth trait; heritability

The aim of this study was to estimate the (co)variance components and breeding values for birthweight (BW) in Nellore cattle by considering or not identical weights that exhibit a high frequency within the contemporary group (CG). A total of 175,258 BW records of Nellore cattle born between 2002 and 2018 were used. The CG was formed by farm, year of birth, sex and feeding regime at birth. CGs with more than 16% of identical BW values were eliminated, generating a data file called BWd. Another file was created without removing these animals (BWt). A mixed linear model was used for statistical analysis, which included fixed and random effects. In both data files analysed, single-trait analysis was performed by Bayesian inference. The mean direct and maternal heritability for BW and the correlation between direct and maternal effects were 0.27, 0.07 and −0.07 for BWt, respectively, and 0.30, 0.093 and −0.07 for BWd. This method should affect the estimation of genetic merits of animals for BW, providing greater safety in the choice of sires.