Inferring causal relationships between reproductive and metabolic health disorders and production traits in first-lactation US Holsteins using recursive models

Health disorders in dairy cows have a substantial ef- fect on the profitability of a dairy enterprise because of loss in milk sales, culling of unhealthy cows, and replacement costs. Complex relationships exist between health disorders and production traits. Understanding the causal structures among these traits may help us disentangle these complex relationships. The principal objective of this study was to use producer-recorded data to explore phenotypic and genetic relationships among reproductive and metabolic health disorders and production traits in first-lactation US Holsteins. A to- tal of 77,004 first-lactation daughters’ records of 2,183 sires were analyzed using recursive models. Health data contained information on reproductive health disorders [retained placenta (RP); metritis (METR)] and meta- bolic health disorders [ketosis (KETO); displaced ab- omasum (DA)]. Production traits included mean milk yield (MY) from early lactation (mean MY from 6 to 60 d in milk and from 61 to 120 d in milk), peak milk yield (PMY), day in milk of peak milk yield (PeakD), and lactation persistency (LP). Three different sets of traits were analyzed in which recursive effects from each health disorder on culling, recursive effects of one health disorder on another health disorder and on MY, and recursive effects of each health disorder on production traits, including PeakD, PMY, and LP, were assumed. Different recursive Gaussian-threshold and threshold models were implemented in a Bayesian framework. Estimates of the structural coefficients obtained be- tween health disorders and culling were positive; on the liability scale, the structural coefficients ranged from 0.929 to 1.590, confirming that the presence of a health disorder increased culling. Positive recursive effects of RP to METR (0.117) and of KETO to DA (0.122) were estimated, whereas recursive effects from health disorders to production traits were negligible in all cases. Heritability estimates of health disorders ranged from 0.023 to 0.114, in accordance with previous studies. Similarly, genetic correlations obtained between health disorders were moderate. The results obtained suggest that reproductive and metabolic health disorder and culling due to metabolic and reproductive diseases have strong causal relationships. Based on these results, we concluded that a health disorder (either reproductive or metabolic) occurring in early lactation has a moderate causal effect on the reproductive or metabolic health disorder occurring in later lactation. In addition, direct, indirect, and overall effects of reproductive and metabolic health disorders on milk yields for cows that avoid culling are weak.