More Genomic Breeding Values on the Spanish scale
What is ICO and gICO?
The ICO for “Production, Functionality and Health” is the total merit index that is used in Spain for ranking bulls according to the Spanish breeding goal. As soon as genomic information is available, gICO can be computed.
What are the benefits of using gICO?
gICO is a breeding goal that aims for the most profitable animals in the future economic circumstances. Spain is producing annually 6 Million of tons of milk and consumes 9 Million of tons of Milk. Therefore gICO is first focused on production and type. Nevertheless, the definition of gICO has been changed in June 2019 to give more and more importance to the functional traits (longevity and claw health) and taking into account milk prices within the Spanish market.
Additionally four Economic Indexes IM€T (€conomic Total Merit Index) have been published since June 2019:
- IM€TLECHE Focus on production for liquid milk market in Spain, including ICO traits plus workability (Milking Speed, Calving Easy and ICAP (Capacity index) as an indicator of Body Weight or Size
- IM€TQUESO Adapted to Cheese Market Prices
- IM€TPASTO Considering limitation of grazing systems
- IM€TECO Taking into account restrictions and prices of Organic Milk Production regulations and market
How to understand gICO?
- Official national breeding values for bulls on the Spanish scale have an average of 1000 and a standard deviation of 100.
- 99% of all bulls with official national proof at CONAFE have breeding values below +1241 in June 2023.
- This means that bulls with a proof higher or equal to +1241 represent the top 1% of all bulls with official national breeding values.
- Current Mean and percentiles are shown at the following link: Genetic Indices
Who is responsible for estimation and publication of breeding values?
CONAFE is responsible for the computation of genomic breeding values, 12 times a year, for traits included into gICO as well as calving, workability and claw health traits. CONAFE is also responsible for the official publication of national and international breeding values.
Where do you search for the gICO of a specific sire?
gICO and all other breeding values calculated by CONAFE can be found on CONAFE Bull Search (official website). Searching is done by using a bulls' country code (3 digits) + sex (M) + 10 last digits of the International ID.
Where do you find more information on Spanish proof?
https://sinbad.conafe.com/IndicesGen/Docs/evaluaciones_Metodologia_Genomica_EN.pdf
