USDA genetic evaluations for imported Finnish Ayrshire, Norwegian Red, Swedish Red, and Montbeliarde sires

Gary W. Rogers and Joan B. Cooper, Geno Global, Hamar, Norway

August 2011

Summary

Finnish Ayrshire, Norwegian Red, Swedish Red, and Montbeliarde sires now have many milking daughters in the U.S. Predicted Transmitting Abilities (PTA) from the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture genetic evaluations (August 2011) were used to summarize performance of imported sires. Norwegian Red sires imported into the U.S. have performed very well compared with sires from the other breeds. Norwegian Red sires have especially been impressive for daughter pregnancy rate which is the U.S. measure of cow fertility.

Details

Thousands of doses of semen from Nordic Red sires and Montbeliarde (French breed) sires have been imported into the U.S. over the past 10 years. Much of this semen has been used in U.S. herds that do not contribute to the national genetic evaluations but a significant percentage of this semen has also been used in herds that do participate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for genetic evaluations in the U.S. and they routinely calculate and publish PTA for imported sires. Sire PTA from August 2011 U.S. genetic evaluations were used in this summary. No data from outside the U.S. contributed to the PTA used in this summary.

Table 1 contains the number of sires with U.S. PTA based on only U.S. daughters and the total number of U.S. daughters from the imported sires included in the PTA. Average PTA plus heterosis for sires from each breed are presented on the current U.S. Holstein base. Therefore the “average U.S. PTA plus heterosis” values in the table reflect expected results from crossing these sires with U.S. Holstein cows. Crossbred daughters of the Nordic Red sires are smaller than pure Holsteins but crossbred daughters of the Montbeliarde sires tend to be heavier than pure Holsteins in the U.S.

Table 1. Number of bulls, total number of daughters and average predicted transmitting abilities (PTA) plus heterosis on the U.S. Holstein base for imported Nordic Red and Montbeliarde sires. PTA are based only on U.S. daughters and are from August 2011.

Average U.S. PTA plus heterosis

daughter

Number bulls/ milk protein fat pregnancy

Breed daughters yield yield yield rate

Finnish Ayrshire 12/891 -395 17 37 3.9

Montbeliarde 19/3238 -565 1 6 3.2

Norwegian Red 19/901 -320 19 23 5.9

Swedish Red 23/9409 -446 16 42 4.8