Genetic Evaluation of Dairy Goat Does for Milk and Fat as an Extension of Buck Evaluation

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Abstract
The current procedure for calculating genetic evaluations of dairy goat bucks provied easily accessible information for the constructing genetic evaluations for dairy goat does (doe indexes). Relationships among sires are accounted for by using the additive genetic relationship matrix among sires if the doe''s sire was evaluated. The sire evaluation plus a portion of residual doe effect is the basis of doe evaluation. Although direct incorporation of maternal relationships among does may accomplished, it requires extensive computations for large data sets. An approximate procedure based on selection index principles includes information form a doe''s dam with only a modest increase in computing expense over that for genetic evaluations of bucks. Doe indexes were computed and adjusted to separate breed bases. Trend in doe indexes were positive for all breeds and ranged from .54 to 1.37 kg/yr for milk yield and from .021 to .052 kg/yr for fat yield.