I. SABEVA and A. APOSTOLOV
Agricultural Institute, BG-9700 Shumen, Bulgaria
SABEVA, I. and A. APOSTOLOV, 2002. Selection indices for estimation by own productivity of young horses from the Arabian breed. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 8: 649–652
A study was made on the basis of the data from the complex assessment of 151 horses from the Arabian breed at 2.5 years of age, born during the last two generation intervals.
Selection indices with different structure were experimented. The indices containing the traits origin and typicality, body measurements and exterior had good gain in efficiency compared to the expected gain in efficiency at straight selection and high accuracy.
The selection index unifying the estimations of origin and typicality, the body measurements, the exterior and the gaits with the vector of economic weights which is a function of the cost of unit production and the regression coefficients when the profit equation is zero can be considered as optimal from a breeding point of view. The use of selection index for the purposes of ranking is expedient in case that the Arabian horses at 2.5 years of age are not tested by performance.