The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of some environmental factors on days open (DO) and days dry (DD), as well as to estimate genetic parameters for these traits in Holstein breed cows. A total of 6,485 records of DO and DD were used. The database were analyzed using a model that included the fixed effects of dairy group farmers, calving year, calving season, production level (PL), genetic group (GG), calving age class (CA) and the first order interactions between PL, GG and CA, and the random effect of bulls. The means, standard error and coefficients of variation for DO and DD were 121.21 (0.69) days, 46.10% and 92.27(0.59) days, 51.71%, respectively. For DO, effects of bull, dairy group farmers, calving year, calving season , PL were significant and was observed interaction between PL and GG. For DD, the effects of dairy group farmers, calving year, calving season, PL, CA and the interaction between PL and GG and for bull were significant. Genetic group did not affected the studied variables and a reduction in DO and DD with year was observed. The heritability estimate in univariate and bivariate analyses were 0.052 and 0.027 for DO, and 0.004 and 0.0001 for DD, respectively. The repeatabilities for DO and DD were 0.06 and 0.03, respectively. It was observed that the environmental effects are the most important on these traits. The genetic, phenotypic and environmental correlations between DO and DD (0.55, 0.72 and 0.73, respectively) show that cows with higher DO had greater days dry.
days open; days dry; genetic parameters; Holstein breed
