MACE for Ayrshire conformation: Impact of different uses of prior genetic correlations

This study is a continuation of the study by Mark and Madsen (2002), who compared Ayrshire across country genetic correlation estimates for conformation traits using REML analysis with estimates from Gibbs sampling using three different prior beliefs. Previous results concerning the length of the burnin period were too pessimistic. Convergence of the Gibbs chain was assessed by the method of batching without accounting for the auto-correlation among samples. Taking the auto-correlation into account reduces the number of rounds needed for burnin from more than 200,000 to less than 10,000.