Brown Swiss Breed News...

Newly Identified Fertility Factor in Brown Swiss

One of the major areas of concentrated effort in the Brown Swiss breed worldwide is to improve fertility. Thanks to the continuing research with genomics, a possible factor that has been contributing to lower fertility in Brown Swiss has been identified. This Haplotype, or single copy of a DNA region, is relatively common in the Brown Swiss population. What interested researchers at AIPL is that no animals could be identified that had two copies of this Haplotype. The name given by the industry to this newly identified fertility factor is Brown Swiss Haplotype 1, or BH1.

Working with this discovery and utilizing the extensive data set provided by DHIA records, AIPL scientist have determined that there is a high probability BH1 impacts either conception or early embryonic development in Brown Swiss cattle. What is exciting about this is that some of the impact of this Haplotype is already contained in Brown Swiss Daughter Pregnancy Rate (DPR), Sire Conception Rate (SCR), Cow Conception Rate (CCR) and Heifer Conception Rate (HCR) data.

It must be stressed that BH1 is not a magic bullet that solves all fertility issues. A couple of the most prominent sires that are noted for fertility concerns do not have BH1 in their genotype. On the other hand, a number of sires that are regarded as improvers of fertility do have BH1 in their genotype. This means that there are more factors that influence fertility then BH1. However, by including consideration for BH1, breeders should shorten calving intervals for Brown Swiss females. The simple way to accomplish this is to avoid using sires that have BH1 on daughters of bulls that also have been labeled with BH1.

At this time, BSCBA plans to have the complete list of US Brown Swiss animals who have BH1 in their genotype as identified with the 50k CHIP published by August 17. A list of AI bulls with NAAB codes known to possess BH1 will be published on August 9. As more information becomes available, we will post it on the Website and Facebook, and publish it in the Brown Swiss Bulletin.

--DK

For more information, read the article by Dr. Kent Weigel, UW-Madison