Evaluation of Inbreeding in the Slovak Simmental Breed and Its Effect on Length of Productive Life

Abstract

This study aimed to estimate the average inbreeding coefficient in Slovak Simmental dairy cattle and evaluate the effect of inbreeding on the length of productive life. All pedigrees included 463,282 animals dating back to 1914. The inbreeding coefficients for each animal in the pedigree were computed using the software CFC 1.0. Length of productive life (LPL) was defined as the time (days) from the first calving to culling, death, or censoring. The influence of inbreeding on the length of productive life was calculated and tested using the Weibull proportional hazards model. The average inbreeding coefficient, the average number of discrete generation equivalents, and the average longest ancestral path for inbred animals were 0.01, 6.59, and 13.08, respectively. While the largest decrease in the mean coefficient of inbreeding was observed from the year of birth 1995 (F = 1.50%) to 2001 (F = 0.59%), an increasing trend of inbreeding in the population was found from 2003 onwards. A weak but significant effect of inbreeding on the length of productive life of Simmental cows was confirmed using survival analysis.