Random regression models for milk, fat and protein in Colombian Buffaloes

Objective. Covariance functions for additive genetic and permanent environmental effects and, subsequently, genetic parameters for test-day milk (MY), fat (FY) protein (PY) yields and mozzarella cheese (MP) in buffaloes from Colombia were estimate by using Random regression models (RRM) with Legendre polynomials (LP). Materials and Methods. Test-day records of MY, FY, PY and MP from 1884 first lactations of buffalo cows from 228 sires were analyzed. The animals belonged to 14 herds in Colombia between 1995 and 2011. Ten monthly classes of days in milk were considered for test-day yields. The contemporary groups were defined as herd-year-month of milk test-day. Random additive genetic, permanent environmental and residual effects were included in the model. Fixed effects included the contemporary group, linear and quadratic effects of age at calving, and the average lactation curve of the population, which was modeled by third-order LP. Random additive genetic and permanent environmental effects were estimated by RRM using third- to- sixth-order LP. Residual variances were modeled using homogeneous and heterogeneous structures. Results. The heritabilities for MY, FY, PY and MP ranged from 0.38 to 0.05, 0.67 to 0.11, 0.50 to 0.07 and 0.50 to 0.11, respectively. Conclusions. In general, the RRM are adequate to describe the genetic variation in test-day of MY, FY, PY and MP in Colombian buffaloes.