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Relationships between body weight, body measurements and milk yield in Holstein heifers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2018

E. P. C. Koenen  and
C. van der Linde
E. P. C. Koenen
Affiliation:
Animal Breeding and Genetics Group, Wageningen Agricultural University, PO Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands
C. van der Linde
Affiliation:
Animal Breeding and Genetics Group, Wageningen Agricultural University, PO Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Abstract

Five size traits (body weight, heart girth, hip height, body depth and rump width) and three yield traits (milk, fat and protein) of 7192 heifers were analysed on a monthly and 305-day lactation basis. The additive genetic variation was moderate to high and changed over time. Correlations between observations measured in different months were all >0.89. Covariance methodology was used to reduce the number of parameters to estimate the variance components. Correlations between size and yield traits ranged from -0.14 to 0.26; this study did not indicate that these correlations were time-dependent.

Type
Research Article
Information
BSAP Occasional Publication , Volume 24: Metabolic stress in dairy cows , 1999 , pp. 165 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 1999

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