Evaluating breedings objectives of a Hungarian Charolais breeding programme

A bio-economic model was used to estimate relative economic values of 11 functional and growth traits in a purebred beef cow-calf production pasture system for Hungarian Charolais cattle. Calculated traits are as follow: birth weight of calves, weight gain of calves from birth to 1st weighing, weight gain of calves from 1st to 2nd weighing, weight gain of calves from 2nd to 3rd weighing and mature weight of cows, conception rate of heifer, conception rate of cows, average score for calving performance, calf losses at calving, calf losses from 48 hours to weaning, and average cow longevity (lifetime). Carcass traits were not included because no fattening was assumed in the system. All calculations were carried out with the computer program Ecoweight. The relative economic importance of traits was calculated multiplying the economic values by the genetic standard deviations of the traits. The highest relative economic importance was obtained for direct losses of calves at calving (15.6%), followed by losses of calves from 48 hours after calving till weaning (13.8%) and lifetime of cows (11.7%). For all the traits that had both effect components, maternal components proved to be less economical important. Surprisingly, calving performance is among the least traits of economically importance, considering that our investigation is based on Charolais breed. Based on the results, fitness traits outweighed the growth traits with a ratio of about 2:1. The inclusion of productive lifetime the breeding programme for Charolais cattle in Hungary is advisable, as it show positive prospects.MscCandidate of Animal Scienc