Heritability of stayability by path coefficient approach when herdlife is influenced by unrelated auxiliary characters”

Abstract

Stayability, the ability to stay in the herd is an important character in dairy cattle breeding and needs a thorough genetic analysis. Herdlife which depends on many auxiliar characters is an aspect of stayability. Thus to study the genetic parameters of stayability, herdlife has been adjusted for production and other unrelated characters affecting it. The corresponding methodology for estimation of heritability has been worked out. To validate the theory developed, stochastic simulation has been used. It is seen that, even small adjustments for characteristics such as production or foot angle have great effects on estimates of heritability of stayability. Further relative absolute bias has also been studied and found that reduction in relative absolute bias is significant due to adjustment of unrelated auxiliary characters.