A Breeding Strategy for Reducing Perinatal Calf Mortality in Heifer Calvings

In Israeli dairy herds heritability estimates for perinatal calf mortality (PCM) in calvings of heifer mates (HM) and cow mates (CM) were 0.42 and 0.13; the respective genetic standard deviations were 6.02 and 2.38 and the genetic correlation between HM and CM calvings was 0.58. It appears that CM calvings can contribute little to predicting HM calving performances.