Incidence of ketosis, metritis, mastitis, and retained placenta were studied on Israeli Holstein cows calving between 2008 and 2017. These diseases were selected based on their economic impact. Ketosis, metritis, and retained placenta were scored dichotomously. Mastitis was scored as absent, a single occurrence during the lactation or more than once. Ketosis and metritis were recorded during the first 21 d after calving, retained placenta during the first 5 d after calving, and mastitis up to 305 d in milk. The effects of herd-year-season, calving age, month of calving, gestation length and occurrence of dystocia were included in the first parity analysis models. All effects were significant (P < 0.001) for metritis and retained placenta. For ketosis all effects were significant, except for gestation length. For mastitis, only the effects of herd-year-season and calving age were significant. First-parity heritabilities and genetic and environmental correlations among these diseases and the traits included in the Israeli breeding index were computed by the MTC REML individual animal model program. Heritabilities and genetic and environmental correlations among the disease traits are in Table 1. All correlations were positive, but the highest correlation, between ketosis and metritis, was only 0.26. Genetic correlations between the disease traits and milk production traits were all “positive,” but all correlations were <0.25. Since mastitis is farmer recorded, a truncated data set was analyzed including only herd-year with >50 cows and >4% mastitis. Genetic correlations between mastitis and lactation somatic cell score were higher in second and third parities, and heritabilities for mastitis were slightly higher. Table 1. Heritabilities and genetic (above the diagonal) and environmental (below the diagonal) correlations among the disease traits in 229,571 first-parity cows¹

Trait	Ketosis	Metritis	Mastitis	Retained placenta
Ketosis	0.07	0.27	0.00	0.05
Metritis	0.16	0.08	0.03	0.10
Mastitis	0.00	0.01	0.05	0.01
Retained placenta	0.06	0.14	0.01	0.06

¹All standard errors were < 0.01.