Animal evaluation review: a breed challenge

Livestock Improvement Corporation is presently undertaking a major review of genetic and production evaluations it provides to the New Zealand dairy industry. The Animal Evaluation Review is investigating the use of a sophisticated method of producing animal evaluations known as the Animal Model. The review is now looking into methods of combining the individual trait outputs from the Animal Model into predictors of animal genetic and productive performance. It intends to provide evaluations across breeds. The purpose of this paper is to look at the possible consequences of evaluating across breeds, potential effects from appearing to rank one breed above (or below) other breeds, and to provide some conclusions concerning the breed issue. The objective of the animal evaluation system is to provide the industry with the tools to choose the most appropriate animals for production and breeding use. The definition of “most appropriate” requires definition. The breeding objective proposed for the Animal Evaluation Review is to “maximise nett farm profit per hectare”.