Estimation of genetic parameters for beef traits from field data

Data of the progeny testing for meat production of the Swiss A.I.-Federation were used in order to estimate genetic parameters. A heritability of carcass gain between 0.21 and 0.25 was found. Very small heritabilities of carcass grades were found (<0.1). Positive genetic correlations between carcass gain and carcass grades seem to exist.The average coefficient of relationship among the sires ($\text{R}$) can be considered in the estimation of the heritability by dividing the variance component of sires (σ_s²) by 1 — R. In this analysis the results were hardly influenced at all, due to the very small average relationship of only 1%.