Beef cattle

Development of a genetic evaluation for severe liver abscesses in beef à€” dairy crossbred cattle

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Abstract

Liver abscesses contribute substantially to economic losses for producers and packers in beefà—dairy production systems by increasing production costs, reducing productivity, and lowering the value of carcasses. Genetic selection may offer a viable approach to reduce the incidence of liver abscess in dairy-influenced cattle. This study aimed to estimate genetic parameters for severe liver abscess and its correlations with other carcass traits and to assess the predictive performance for liver abscess in beefà—dairy crosses. Records of liver abscess scores and carcass traits (marbling, fat thickness, ribeye area, carcass weight, and yield grade) were available on 3,522 crossbred beefà—dairy cattle. In general, a liver abscess score of A+ is associated with lower dressing percentages, as additional trimming is required when abscesses adhere to the diaphragm or abdominal cavity, leading to greater economic losses. Therefore, the trait was evaluated as absence (0/A; coded as 0) or presence (A+; coded as 1) of severe liver abscesses. Genotype information was available for all animals and 42,915 SNP after quality control. Pedigree information was available for over 2 million beef cattle animals but was not available for the beefà—dairy crosses. Genetic parameters were obtained from an animal linear model based on the genomic relationship matrix, including the fixed effects of contemporary group, sex, genomic retained heterozygosity, and age at harvest in ASReml 4.2. A preliminary analysis was performed using a threshold probit model. The correlation between solutions obtained from linear and threshold models was 0.996, thus we treated severe liver abscess phenotype as a linear trait due to greater computing efficiency. Final predictions were obtained fitting a ssGBLUP model with the same fixed effects using BLUPF90 program. Genetic correlations between severe liver abscess and carcass traits were estimated with a bivariate model, which included the same fixed effects for both traits. The predictive performance was evaluated in an independent population whose phenotypes were not included in the model development and obtainment of predictions. The incidence of severe liver abscesses (score A+) in the studied population was 49.7%. The beef à— dairy population was mainly composed by Angusà—Holstein (47%) and Angusà—Limousinà—Holstein (19%) crosses. The estimated heritability of severe liver abscesses incidence was 0.07±0.02 in a linear scale, meaning that environmental factors accounted for most part of the phenotypic variation. Genetic correlation estimates between severe liver abscess and carcass traits were low (≤0.08). Validation results showed difference in severe liver abscesses incidence of 8% between animals at the top and bottom breeding value quartiles. Overall, our findings suggest that genetic selection could be effective in the long term, serving as a valuable tool for choosing beef sires to produce beefà—dairy crossbred cattle with reduced susceptibility to develop severe liver abscesses.

Keywords: 2026

How to Cite:

Sanglard, L., Bernal Rubio, Y., Andersen, K., Passafaro, T., Short, T., Gonzalez-Peña, D., Gordo, D., Smith, S., Sexten, W. & Di Croce, F., (2026) “Development of a genetic evaluation for severe liver abscesses in beef à€” dairy crossbred cattle”, World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production Digital Archive 2026(1): 2285798. doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/wcgalp.23795

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