engleski

Estimation of heritabilities of conformation traits in Slovenian population of Lipizzan horse

Scoring of conformation traits as the main breeding criteria is described in the breeding program for Slovenian population of Lipizzan horses. At the moment, the quality of the horse is assessed in relation to the phenotypically scored traits. The aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters in the population of Lippizan horse in Slovenia for the first time and to check their suitability for the genetic evaluation. Data from 291 horses born from 1996 to 2011 were analysed. The pedigree file contained 945 individuals. There were 12 conformation traits in total (3 measured and 9 scored) and 2 gait traits. Traits are subjectively evaluated on a 10 point scale by a team of experts after horses achieved sexual maturity. Covariance components were estimated in the VCE 6.0 package with an animal model including age at scoring, birth year and sex as fixed effects. Estimated heritabilities ranged from 0.07 for breed type to 0.64 for cannon bone circumference. The highest heritabilities were estimated for the neck (0.59), chest girth (0.58), front part of the body (0.47), and overall score (0.45). Estimated heritabilities for front legs (0.39), middle part of the body, gait correctness (0.31) and height in wither (0.30) were moderate, while rear legs (0.26), rear part of the body (0.25), head (0.21) and gait efficiency (0.16) had lower heritabilities. The results show that it is possible to use the conformation traits for genetic evaluation, but the low number of scored animals considered for the covariance components estimation needs to be taken in the account. To increase the number of scored animals for the prediction of breeding values for conformation traits, one of the options may be to merge data from populations from different countries.

heritabilities; conformation traits; Lipizzan horse

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