Status as of: 2020-10-05

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	CROATIA	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	PRODUCTION	
Breed(s)	Istrian sheep	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Test-day records of daily milk (kg), fat and protein yield (kg), fat and protein content (%),somatic cell count (SCC)	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Milk recording (ICAR guidelines) AT and B4 method 	
Time period for data inclusion	Test-day records from the 2006.	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	Parities: 1st - 6th. 	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Days in milk: 5 - 210 
Number of ewes per year of testing by herd >= 3	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	No	
Sire categories	-	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	ST - FR - TD - BLUP- AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	F: - parity, lambing season
FR: - age at lambing nested within parity, Ali - Schaeffer curve nested within parity and litter size (for yield traits)
FR: Ali - Schaeffer curve nested within parity (for content traits and SCC)
R: - herd, herd-test-day, permanent environment	
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 rams and ewes 	
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 ewes born in 2014.
2024	
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 >=50% (F)	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	2	
Use in total merit index4	Fat yield 20%, protein yield 80%	
Anticipated changes in the near future	Change of genetic base	
Key reference on methodology applied	M. Špehar, Z. Barać, M. Kastelic, D. Mulc, D. Jurković, B. Mioč (2012).Genetic parameters for milk traits using fixed regression models for Istrian sheep in Croatia. EAAP, Bratislava	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Croatian Agency for Agriculture and Food, Svetošimunska cesta 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, Phone: + 385 1 2356 933, marija.spehar@hapih.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:	PRODUCTION	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Istrian sheep	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Milk yield	TD record (kg/day)		0.09	0.0163		
Fat yield	TD record (kg/day)		0.06	0.0001		
Fat content	TD record (%)		0.02	0.0662		
Protein yield	TD record (kg/day)		0.08	0.00001		
Protein content	TD record (%)		0.06	0.0267		
SCC	TD record (log2)		0.04	0.2199		
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.