Abstract
The biggest challenge of including feed intake in the breeding goal is to have enough amount of records, given its difficulty measuring individually. However, with new tools available, like 3D cameras and artificial intelligence, this problem might be overcome. This is a preliminary work on getting genetic parameters for dry matter intake (DMI) and body weight (BW) measured using 3D cameras and artificial intelligence to posteriorly calculate residual feed intake (RFI). A total of 21,386 weekly records of DMI and BW recorded from 3D cameras during 2019 and 2020 were available from 505 commercial Danish Jersey cows. These weekly records were complemented with milk and milk content records of the same period, and energy corrected milk (ECM) was calculated. RFI was calculated as the partial regression of dry matter intake on energy sinks (Tempelman et al., 2015). Estimated heritabilities were 0.07 (RFI), 0.08 (DMI), 0.22 (BW) and 0.26 (ECM). Genetic correlations between DMI and ECM (0.23) and BW (0.22) were positive and moderate. Genetic correlations of RFI and DMI were highly positive (0.89), whereas between RFI and BW (0.15) and ECM (-0.20) were low, but given the large standard error not different from zero. Phenotypic correlations between RFI and ECM, BW were close to zero as expected, whereas, between RFI and DMI were close to one. With these results, we conclude that feed efficiency (RFI) calculated using DMI and BW measured by 3D cameras is heritable. However, there still room for improvement. Given that this is a preliminary result, and DMI and BW were measured only in two commercial farms with a limited number of animals, therefore, when adding more farms, animals and records the genetic parameters for DMI, BW and RFI might change. In addition, the algorithm to predict the phenotype with the 3D images still in adjusting phase.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics |
Number of pages | 4 |
Publisher | Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics |
Publication date | Nov 2021 |
Pages | 226-229 |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2021 |
Event | 24th conference of the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics - On-line Duration: 2 Nov 2021 → 4 Nov 2021 |
Conference
Conference | 24th conference of the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics |
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Location | On-line |
Period | 02/11/2021 → 04/11/2021 |