Study on the integration of dry matter intake of young bulls as additionalselection trait in artificial insemination breeding programs for dairy cattle - 2nd communication: Cost-benefit analysis of different breeding programs

The aim of this study was to consider the effects of integration of the tra it dry matter intake in the performance test of potential bulls for artific ial insemination of the breed German Holsteins. For the calculation a deter ministic model was chosen with a population of 550.000 cows under artificia l insemination. The structure of the population mirrors the one of the Hols tein population of the Rinder-Union West e. G.. If the performance test of young bulls is supplemented by the characteristic "daily dry matter intake" , the dearest improvements can be seen in the case of closer relations betw een the dry matter intake of lactating cows and bulls and weakly positive r elations between dry matter intake and milk yield traits of cows. About the relations between dry mater intake of cows and bulls as well as between dr y mater intake and milk yield traits is not much knowledge until now. Becau se of the importance of this relationships for efficiency of the performanc e test for the trait dry matter intake of growing bulls there should be mor e research on this area in future.