Spring 2027

Breeding and Genetics of Livestock and Companion Animals

Introduces quantitative genetics concepts and tools for improving livestock and companion animals, focusing on veterinary medicine, animal health, and breeding program design.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Guilherme Rosa

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Brian Kirkpatrick

The course jumped straight into advanced material without background review, making it especially difficult for transfer students or those rusty in biology.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Compute and interpret narrow- and broad-sense heritability, repeatability, and other genetic parameters using provided datasets.

  • Apply additive and multiplicative adjustments to phenotypic records to correct for environmental effects.

  • Interpret sire summaries and large-scale genetic evaluations.

  • Predict correlated responses to selection and evaluate multi-trait selection decisions.

  • Calculate hybrid vigor and retained heterosis across crossbreeding systems.

  • Design and analyze family-based datasets using regression and ANOVA.

  • Communicate breeding recommendations using the language and frameworks of animal genetics.

  • Describe the basics of mixed models and Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP).

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

ZOOLOGY/​BIOLOGY/​BOTANY 151, (ZOOLOGY/​BIOLOGY 101 and 102), (BIOCORE 382, 383, and 384), or graduate/professional standing

ANSCI 361

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 2.87 GPA, 36.1% A/AB (n=61 letter grades); Spring 2025: 2.68 GPA, 22.4% A/AB (n=58 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.00 GPA, 41.8% A/AB (n=98 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

BRIAN KIRKPATRICK is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

GUILHERME ROSA is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LAB 301Classroom Instruction0 / 340
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 340

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Brian Kirkpatrick

One student enjoyed the genetics content and found the professor accessible, though they noted the grading was somewhat difficult.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 2.87 GPA, 36.1% A/AB (n=61 letter grades); Spring 2025: 2.68 GPA, 22.4% A/AB (n=58 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.00 GPA, 41.8% A/AB (n=98 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Brian Kirkpatrick

The course jumped straight into advanced material without background review, making it especially difficult for transfer students or those rusty in biology.

Past student reviews · Brian Kirkpatrick

One student found the professor spoke very quietly, making lectures hard to follow, and described the readings and labs as overly complicated.

Topics

  • Quantitative genetics
  • Livestock and companion animal improvement
  • Crossbreeding systems
  • Genetic evaluations and sire summaries

Skills

  • Compute and interpret genetic parameters such as heritability and repeatability
  • Calculate hybrid vigor and retained heterosis
  • Design and analyze family-based datasets using regression and ANOVA
  • Describe basics of mixed models and BLUP

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.21 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data
Conflicting source distributions

Excluded from calculated GPA.

[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "course_id": "ANSCI 361",
    "course_uid": "course_69c9ffa6d48d783dfcbc334b",
    "term_id": "1124",
    "term_name": "Spring 2012",
    "instructors": [
      "Brian Kirkpatrick",
      "DAVID THOMAS",
      "Guilherme Rosa",
      "HASAN KHATIB"
    ],
    "a": 7,
    "ab": 3,
    "b": 14,
    "bc": 2,
    "c": 7,
    "d": 1,
    "f": 0,
    "satisfactory": 0,
    "unsatisfactory": 0,
    "credit": 0,
    "no_credit": 0,
    "passed": 0,
    "incomplete": 0,
    "no_work": 0,
    "not_reported": 0,
    "other": 0,
    "total": 34
  },
  {
    "run_id": "legacy-0cb4d29a588ec7f11c7e00b7cf5dc3a0d23d0349",
    "semester": "1266",
    "observed_at": "2026-01-22 01:00:26.555427+00:00",
    "course_id": "ANSCI/DYSCI 361",
    "course_uid": "course_69c9ffa6d48d783dfcbc334b",
    "term_id": "1124",
    "term_name": "Spring 2012",
    "instructors": [
      "GUILHERME ROSA",
      "HASAN KHATIB",
      "Brian Kirkpatrick",
      "DAVID THOMAS"
    ],
    "a": 1,
    "ab": 1,
    "b": 5,
    "bc": 2,
    "c": 5,
    "d": 1,
    "f": 0,
    "satisfactory": 0,
    "unsatisfactory": 0,
    "credit": 0,
    "no_credit": 0,
    "passed": 0,
    "incomplete": 0,
    "no_work": 0,
    "not_reported": 0,
    "other": 0,
    "total": 15
  }
]

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ANSCI 361 · Spring 2027

Breeding and Genetics of Livestock and Companion Animals

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:604:022182",
    "course_id": "ANSCI 361",
    "course_uid": "course_69c9ffa6d48d783dfcbc334b",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "022182",
    "source_subject_id": "604",
    "title": "Breeding and Genetics of Livestock and Companion Animals",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "14e457ea714a3eb438b4e88cc99e4234c927684a38163031a966a1e3866e12f8",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}