Assessment of Inbreeding Depression and Inbreeding Trend of Production Traits in Iraqi Holstein Cows

Inbreeding is defined as the probability that two alleles at any locus are identical by descent and occur when related individuals are mated to each other. A total of 123427, 115810 and 88361 records of 412-d yields of milk, fat and protein of Iraqi Holstein cows were collected from 1995 to 2010 in 838 herds used to estimation the inbreeding depression and inbreeding trend. Pedigree records of Iraqi Holstein cow were used to assessment inbreeding coefficients and these coefficients ranged from 0 to 42%. Animal model was used to estimation inbreeding depression on traits. Fixed effects included in statistical model were herd – year, age at calving and inbreeding coefficient as continuous and discrete variable. When considering inbreeding as continuous variable in model, the inbreeding depression for 412-d yields of milk, fat and protein were -28.19, -0.98 and -0.88 kg per 1% increase in inbreeding in Iraqi Holsteins, respectively. In this group of animal that inbreeding coefficient was between 0 < F ≤ 5.34 inbreeding was not caused reduction in production traits. However, in group of animal that inbreeding coefficient was greater than 5.34, and inbreeding depression in production traits was observed. The result of this study confirms of inbreeding depression in Iraqi Holstein cows.