Male indicator traits to improve female reproductive performance

Abstract

Prior to the Co-operative Research Centre for Beef Genetic Technologies (Beef CRC), little genetic information on bovine male reproductive traits and their associations with components of female reproduction was available. This study was initiated to identify male indicator traits to improve male and female progeny reproductive performance. The genetic control of traditional and novel measures of male reproductive performance and their genetic correlations with critically important female traits, including age at puberty, lactation anoestrous and traits associated with female lifetime reproductive performance were estimated. This project demonstrated that male traits can be used to indirectly improve reproductive performance (male and female) in northern Australia herds. It was conservatively estimated that an EBV for sperm motility in Brahman cattle may lift lifetime weaning percentage by 6% in 10 years. However, sperm motility was identified as a useful trait in this project through the assessment made by a limited number of highly skilled technical people and the precision was good. If this trait is to be used widely throughout the industry as a predictor of male reproductive performance, additional training and accreditation will be required by the veterinary profession. Further, it may be better to use a suite of semen quality traits in the development of an EBV for male reproductive performance.