Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 14 ISSUE 3
Written by Agatha POPESCU

The paper purpose was to apply a simplified mixed model BLUP for estimating bulls' breeding value for meat production in terms of weight daily gain and establish their hierarchy, Also, it aimed to compare the bulls' ranging obtained by a simplified BLUP mixed model with their hierarchy set up by contemporary comparison. A sample of 1,705 half sibs steers, offspring of 106 Friesian bulls were used as biological material. Bulls' breeding value varied between + 244.5 g for the best bull and -204.7 g for the bull with the weakest records. A number of 57 bulls ( 53.77%) registered positive breeding values. The accuracy of the breeding value estimation varied between 80, the highest precision, in case of the bull number 21 and 53, the lowest precision, in case of the bull number 38. A number of 7 bulls of the total of 57 with a positive breeding value were situated aproximately on the same positions at a difference of 0 to 1 points on the both lists established by BLUP and contemporary comparison. As a conclusion, BLUP could be largely and easily applied in bull evaluation for meat production traits in term of weight daily gain, considered the key parameter during the fattening period and its precision is very high, a guarantee that the bulls' hierarchy is a correct one. If a farmer would chose a high breeding value bull from a catalogue, he could be sure of the improvement of beef production by genetic gain.

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