Short communication: Bivariate genetic analysis of clinical mastitis and somatic cell count in Norwegian Dairy Cattle

Abstract

Clinical mastitis (CM) and lactation mean somatic cell score (LSCS) were analyzed with a bivariate linear sire model. Nearly 1.4 million primiparous cows of Norwegian Dairy Cattle from 2043 sires were used. The heritability estimates were 0.03 for CM and 0.11 for LSCS. The estimates of genetic and residual correlations between the 2 traits were 0.53 and 0.10, respectively. It is postulated that the genetic correlation probably is highly population-specific.