The Chianina is a beef cattle breed reared in centre Italy with extensive and semi-extensive systems. There are almost 38,000 animals registered in the Chianina National Herd Book. Chianina is well known for its morphology, muscle development and meat production.
The project s goal is to improve longevity. To do that the following issues need to be addressed:
1. Estimation of phenotypic and genetic parameters for longevity;
2. Derivation of economic values; and
3. Optimisation of the breeding program.
Survival analysis will be used to investigate the phenotypic value of the type traits as an early predictor of longevity for beef cattle and the phenotypic relationship between production and longevity in order to analyse the effect of voluntary culling for production.
The BLUPF90 will be used to estimate heritabilities for longevity and the genetic correlation between longevity, production traits and housing systems. |
