Our aim was to investigate the genetic correlations between CH₄ production and body conformation, fertility, and health traits in dairy cows. Data were collected from 10 commercial Holstein herds in Denmark, including 5,758 cows with records for body conformation traits, 7,390 for fertility traits, 7,439 for health traits, and 1,397 with individual CH₄ measurements. Methane production was measured during milking in automatic milking systems, using a sniffer approach. Correlations between CH₄ and several different traits were estimated. These traits were interval between calving and first insemination, interval between first and last insemination, number of inseminations, udder diseases, other diseases, height, body depth, chest width, dairy character, top line, and body condition score. Bivariate linear models were used to estimate the genetic parameters within and between CH₄ and the other traits. In general, the genetic correlations between CH₄ and the traits investigated were low. The heritability of CH₄ was 0.25, and ranged from 0.02 to 0.07 for fertility and health traits, and from 0.17 to 0.74 for body conformation traits. Further research with a larger data set should be performed to more accurately establish how CH₄ relates to fertility, health, and body conformation traits in dairy cattle. This will be useful in the design of future breeding goals that consider the production of CH₄.

我们的目的是研究奶牛CH ₄产生与身体构象，繁殖力和健康性状之间的遗传相关性。数据收集自丹麦的10个商业荷斯坦牛群，包括5758头具有身体形态特征记录的奶牛，7390例生育能力特征，7439例健康特征和1,9797个单独的CH ₄测量值。使用嗅探器方法在自动挤奶系统的挤奶过程中测量甲烷的产生。CH ₄之间的相关性并估计了几种不同的特征。这些特征是产犊和第一次授精之间的间隔，第一次和最后一次授精之间的间隔，授精次数，乳房疾病，其他疾病，身高，身高，胸围，乳品性状，顶线和身体状况评分。使用双变量线性模型来估计CH ₄与其他性状之间以及之间的遗传参数。通常，CH ₄与所研究性状之间的遗传相关性较低。CH ₄的遗传力为0.25，对于生育力和健康性状，其范围为0.02至0.07，对于身体构型性状，其范围为0.17至0.74。应使用更大的数据集进行进一步研究，以更准确地确定CH ₄与奶牛的生育力，健康和身体构象特征有关。这在设计考虑CH ₄产生的未来育种目标时将很有用。