Comparison of various sire evaluation methods in a herd of Holstein Friesian cattle

Abstract

Relative efficiency of the sire evaluation procedures based on minimum standard error of
procedures indicated that both BLUP and MCC methods were more appropriate and efficient in
estimating the breeding values of sires compared to SDA and CC. The accuracy and efficiency of
BLUP and MCC procedures was probably due to their ability to remove the inherent biases in the
data which are likely to arise from sampling sire progeny, progeny per sire effect of geographical
location, period and season. In general, BLUP procedure was found to be the best in its application
due to its consistency and unbiasedness in ranking of sires in comparison to other procedures. The
present findings strongly recommend the use of BLUP procedure for evaluating sires under field and
farm conditions, since the BLUP procedure had an advantage over MCC, especially in the absence of
data on contemporary daughters.