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Genomic evaluation of productive, health, and economic traits in Ecuadorian Jersey dairy cattle
1 , * 2, 3
1  Escuela Superior Politécnica Agropecuaria de Manabí (ESPAM), Carrera de Medicina Veterinaria, Calceta, Ecuador
2  Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinaria (INIAV), Santarem, Portugal
3  CIISA-AL4AnimalS, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Academic Editor: Michael Hässig

Abstract:

Genomic analysis in dairy cattle is considered a practical technology in the genetic management of livestock. The objective of this study was to analyse the results derived from genomic testing of a commercial Ecuadorian Jersey herd between 2021 and 2025. A total of 409 genomic analyses using the Illumina Bovine SNP50 BeadChip (Clarifide–Zoetis, San Diego, CA, USA) were performed from hair root samples to evaluate the traits of interest related to milk production (quantity and quality), health, and economic indices, all of which are considered in the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) database. In order to determine the genetic progress of the population, the year of birth of each animal was considered as a fixed factor. The data were processed and analysed using RStudio v. 1.4.1564 software. It was observed that between 2021 and 2025, production parameters such as milk (37.75 lb to 496.86 lbs), fat (-13.58 to 8.3 lbs), and protein (-6.8 to 14.52 lbs) increased dramatically in value, while the average percentage of fat (-0.078-0.081%) and protein (-0.042-0.020%), as well as somatic cells (2.94-2.97 x 100,000 cells/mL), improved slightly, albeit with high variability. On the other hand, no individuals were found to be carriers of the recessive BLAD and DUMPS genes (0%), and only one animal was a carrier of the CMV gene (0.24%). In addition, the Beta Casein A1/A2 (p=0.001), Alpha S-1 Casein (p<0.0001), and Kappa Casein I (p<0.0001) genes were found to be in Hardy–Weinberg disequilibrium, while β-lactoglobulin was the only gene found to be in equilibrium (p=0.0872). Economic indices such as net merit ($ -211.89–38), cheese merit ($ -221.93–37.95), and fluid merit ($ -186.89–38.69) increased over time. In conclusion, genomic evaluation improves the selection process for the best Jersey cows by increasing the efficiency of traditional genetic analyses, which only took into account the genetic characteristics of the sire (imported bulls), thus efficiently improving genetic progress in this breed.

Keywords: Genomic analysis; production traits; health traits; economic traits; dairy cattle; Jersey
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