Abstract #174

# 174
Pooling data for international evaluations for feed intake and efficiency.
J. Lassen*1, 1Viking Genetics, Randers, Denmark.

Genetic evaluation of feed intake and efficiency is a hot topic worldwide. Lack of data to make genetic evaluation for feed intake and efficiency is an equally hot topic worldwide. Therefore, many initiatives have been made to exchange data. As an example the Efficient Dairy Genome Project led by University of Guelph and University of Alberta institutions from several countries have put up data on feed intake, methane and related traits to exploit the opportunities to make national genetic evaluations. One of the main ideas behind the data sharing in this project is that institutions that contribute data have full access to all the data that is uploaded. For a country to be able to publish breeding values, having access to the data that is the foundation of the estimation is essential. If an institution does not upload data on a specific trait, the institution does not have access to the data from the other institutions on this trait. Each country has their own protocol to make phenotypic and genomic registrations of data. This can be a challenge for setting up an appropriate genomic evaluation. Phenotypes are not measured in the same way between countries and genotypes are from very different panels. In addition, the genetic background of the populations in the participating countries can be very different. For a trait like feed intake where relatively huge genotype by environment interactions are expected, this is a big challenge when number of animals as well as number of records are limited. An alternative would be to avoid having genomic evaluations in such a case; however, this is not an option. New methods to measure feed intake in commercial farms are needed for several reasons: 1) to be able to use individual feed intake as an on-farm management tool, 2) to get more data from cows that are not in experiments and genetically close to the current reference group, 3) to be able to actually demonstrate that selection has an effect. Therefore, more effort should be put into developing tools and technologies that are profitable to farmers.

Key Words: data pooling, feed intake, feed efficiency