Simmental Breed Production Characteristics and Breeding Goals

Abstract

This paper presents the most important production results obtained for the population of Simmetal breed raised in majority of the European countries which with a total population of about 9 million animals rates as the second biggest important cattle breed in Europe. Breeding goals from previous period were analysed along with newly defined breeding goals in some Simmental breed populations. Current mean values for milk yield of Simmental cows in standard lactation in the European countries range from 5500 to 7500 kg. Depending on the Simmental breed population in most countries a breeding goal set for first lactation cows is milk yield of 5500 or 6000 kg with 4.0% milk fat and 3.5% protein, while in cows who finished their third lactation required milk production is more than 7000 kg for Simmental breed, over 8000 kg for Simmental breed with share of Red and White Holstein genes and over 8500 kg for Montbeliard breed. A special emphasis is given on the prolonging of the duration of life and production span. During life span the demand is to produce minimum 30 000 kg milk/cow. This demand can be realised if functional traits in breeding goal participate with over 40 % with proper implementation of improvement programme. As for the traits that are significant for meat production, depending on the population, defined breeding goal for daily liveweight gain are values above 1500 g/day (i.e. 1400 g /day) for Simmental male bullcalves.