Status as of: 2013-08-30

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	CROATIA	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	FERTILITY	
Breed(s)	SIM	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Calving interval (days)	
Method of measuring and collecting data	From milk recording data	
Time period for data inclusion	Data since January 1985	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Parities from 1st to 5th 
Additionally, parities from the 5th to the 10th joined into a common class (parity 5+)	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Calving interval in range from 150 to 1200 days	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	No	
Sire categories	AI	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	ST – BLUP – AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	F: region, milk class, year-season of calving
R: herd, herd – year of calving	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	No	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	No	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	See PAGE 3 for heritability/genetic variance estimates	
System validation	Means and SDs for all variables calculated; means and SDs of BV for bulls,
Genetic trend validation – method 3	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	see PAGE 3 for heritability/genetic variance estimates	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Mean of cows born in 2003.

2014	
Calculation of reliability	Calculated from additive genetic variance and prediction error variance (PEV, Mrode, 1996)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Reliability >=50% (M) and >=35% (F)	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	4	
Use in total merit index4	SIM: Calving interval 5.0 %	
Anticipated changes in the near future	Change of genetic base	
Key reference on methodology applied		
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Croatian Agricultural Agency, Department for genetic evaluation, Ilica 101, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, Phone: +385-1-3903-176, Fax: +385-1-3903-192, mspehar@hpa.hr	
1) Either: Production (e.g. milk, fat, protein), Conformation, Health (e.g. mastitis resistance, milk somatic cell, resistance to diseases other than mastitis), Longevity, Calving (e.g. stillbirth, calving ease), Female fertility (e.g. non-return rate, interval between reproductive events, number of AI’s, heat strength), Workability (e.g. milking speed, temperament), Beef production, Efficiency (e.g. body weight, energy balance, body conditioning score), or Other traits.
2) Indicate frequencies per category if the trait is categorical and specify transformation of data if practiced.
3) Use abbreviations for most common effects (see document with list of abbreviations at http://www-interbull.slu.se/service_documentation/General/list_of_abbreviations.rtf) and indicate random (R) or fixed (F).
4) Please give economic weights and indicate how they are expressed (preferably in genetic standard deviation units).

Form GE	Appendix GE

Parameters used in genetic evaluation

Country (or countries):	CROATIA	
Main trait group:	Fertility: Calving interval	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	SIM	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Calving interval	days	X	0.05	388.138		
a	Indicate, with X, traits that are submitted to Interbull for international genetic evaluations.
b	If repeated records are treated as separate traits, provide heritability estimates and genetic variances separately for each trait, as well as for all traits pooled, i.e. for the trait submitted to Interbull.
c	Expressed as follows:
StandEval=((eval-a)/b)*c+d where a=mean of the base adjustment, b=standard deviation of the base, c=standard deviation of expression (include sign if scale is reversed), and d=base of expression.