1Gaziosmanpasa University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Animal Science, Tokat, 60240, Turkey.
2Kafkas University, Faculty of Veterinary, Department of Animal Science, Kars, Turkey.
To predict genetic parameters of milk yield and assess the genetic improvement in Jersey cows reared at Karaköy State Farm in Black sea region a total of 1275 records from 460 cows were used. Year, season and lactation number were added in the model as fixed effects for the preliminary analyses. The highest h2 (0.37) was estimated for milk yield. As a reflection of the environmental influences, both Vc (14.93) and C2 (< 0.001) had low values for the studied herd. Genetic correlation between the lactation length and calving interval was strong (0.90). Permanent environmental effect due to cow (PEEC) did not show any sharp movement among the years (0.17 to −0.48). It is concluded that most of the influence on milk was genetic and very limited environmental.
Breeding value, genetic trend, milk yield, Jersey
