Short communication: Heritability of twinning rate in Holstein cattle

Abstract

Multiple births or twinning in cattle is a naturally occurring reproductive phenomenon. For dairy cattle, twinning is considered a detrimental trait as it can be harmful to cow and calf as well as costly to the producer. The objective of this study was to examine recent US calving records for the Holstein breed to determine a current estimate of heritability for twinning rate along with effects of season and parity. Two models were used in this study: a linear sire model and a binary threshold-logit sire model. Both were mixed models considering fixed effects and random effects. Analyses were conducted using a restricted maximum likelihood method. Heritability estimates were 0.0192 ± 0.0009 and 0.1420 ± 0.0069 for the linear and threshold models, respectively. Repeatabilities from the linear and threshold-logit models were 0.0443 ± 0.0012 and 0.2310 ± 0.0072, respectively. The nonzero estimates of heritability indicate the potential to select against this trait for genetic improvement of Holstein cattle.