Definition of a breeding goal for the Piemontese breed: economic and biological values and their sensitivity to production circumstances

Economic values have been derived for the Piemontese breed using a bio-economic deterministic model that simulates an integrated beef cattle enterprise. Investigated traits were post-weaning daily gain (DG), live fleshiness scores (FLESH) that are related to the market value of animals for slaughter, calving ease in the first (CEh) and later parities (CEc) and calving interval (CI). Economic values, calculated using a fixed number of cows per herd as a basis of evaluation and expressed in Euro per cow per year, were 0.20 per g/day for DG, 57.01 per point for FLESH (measured with a linear scoring system in nine classes), −2.60 per day for CI. For calving ease economic values per a 1% increase in the liability scale were 0.57€ in the first and 1.99€ in later parities, respectively. The economic value of the studied traits showed moderate dependence on trait levels. Production circumstances poorly affected the estimated economic values with the exception of energy input and live weight output limitations that markedly decreased the economic values of all traits but FLESH. Biological values, reflecting improvement in efficiency in energy utilization, corresponded well in relative size to economic values in most of the considered traits.