No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2017
Mastitis has been one of the major diseases in dairy herds inducing economic costs associated with decreasing milk yield and its quality as well as increasing health care practices. In response to bacterial infection, the concentration of somatic cells increases in the milk of dairy cows (Boettcher et al., 2007). Somatic cell count has been widely utilised as an indicator trait for mastitis. Somatic cell count, like milk yield, varies with stage of lactation and more accurate genetic evaluation of dairy cows could be obtained when a test day model is used (Haile-Mariam et al., 2001). The main aim of this research was to compare fixed and random regression test day models in genetic evaluation of Iranian Holstein first lactation cows based on their predicted breeding value for somatic cell score.