Genetic and non-genetic factors affecting productive and reproductive traits in Deoni cattle

Abstract

The present study was carried out in Deoni, the dual purpose cattle breed of Southern India, maintained at NDRI herd, SRS, Bengaluru. Mean phenotypic performances for the traits of age at first calving (AFC), first service period (FSP), first lactation milk yield (FLMY) and first lactation length (FLL) were estimated as 42.90 ± 0.49 months, 179.00 ± 6.3 days, 643.08 ± 25.16 kg and 178.24 ± 4.41 days respectively. Significant effect of parity was found on AFC and FSP. Effect of period of birth, period of calving and season of calving was found to be significant on FSP. Significant effect of period of birth, period of calving, classes of AFC and FLL were found on FLMY. The heritability of first lactation milk yield was estimated as 0.38 ± 0.29. Phenotypic correlation of FLMY with FLL (0.88 ± 0.02) was found to be highly significant (p<0.01).

Effect of Non Genetic Factors and Sire on Lactation Length in Frieswal Cattle

“…The variation in lactation length observed during different periods might be due to the level of management practices introduced from one year to another and the variations caused due to the environmental factors like fluctuations in temperature and humidity and also due to some genetic factors like herd genetic levels, changes in the age of the animals etc. The significant effect of the period of calving on lactation length was found by Chopade et al (2002) in crossbred cattle, Das et al (2011) in crossbred dairy cows and Beneberu et al (2020) in pure Jersey cattle in Central Highland Ethiopia. Highly significant effect of period of calving on first lactation length was observed by Eid (2012) in Friesian cattle, Hussain et al (2015) in Tharparkar cattle.…”