Feasibility of International Genetic Evaluations of Dairy Sires for Somatic Cell Count and Clinical Mastitis

Selection of foreign sires involves risk when genetic values for breeding goal traits are unknown. Information to support objective selection decisions concerning foreign sires are confined to the information from Interbull=s routine evaluations for production and conformation traits. Functional traits are associated with efficiency of production by their direct influence on costs of production, and are generally considered to be an important factor in maximizing profit from dairy operations. As a consequence, several countries perform national genetic evaluations for various functional traits (Groen et al., 1997), and international genetic evaluations should be considered to enable comparisons between sires across countries for these traits as well.