The investigation of viability and body measurements for water buffalo calves*

Abstract

The presence of water buffalo in Turkey dates back to 3000 BC. These animals, known as Anatolian water buffalo, have 50 chromosomes and belong to the riverine buffalo group. This is the only breed of water buffalo in Turkey. Anatolian water buffaloes are covered with a black or gray skin and sparse hair cover. Some water buffalo might have white markings on their foreheads and the tip of their tails. The horns of Anatolian water buffalo are bow-like and arc backwards. Calves are black at birth. However, at the age of 3-6 months they become reddish-brown. At the age of 10-12 months they become black again. Anatolian water buffaloes are very resistant to sudden changes in feed as well as diseases (1). The current number of these animals is 172,181 heads and they are generally raised for meat and milk (2,3). The loss of calves is of major economic importance in Turkey, as in the world (4). Different researchers suggested that factors such as birth season, genotype, and sex may affect vitality (5-10). In some studies carried out with Murrah, Nili-Ravi, and Surti breeds, the mortality rate was reported between 5% and 49.90% (4,7,10-15). Body measurements taken at different times were ages with rate of growth and also economic features, such as viability (11). In the studies conducted by Izgi and Asker (16), Sekerden (17), Sekerden et al. (18), Sekerden and Tapki (19), and Sekerden (20), it was reported that some body measurements of Anatolian buffalo calves were affected by factors such as genotype, sex, year of birth, parity, and birth season. Studies carried out for Anatolian water buffaloes and crosses revealed that birth weight was between 26.50 and 32.30 kg (21, 22). Weight at 6 months of age was from 109.40 to 112.30 kg, while weight at 12 months was 178.40-181.00 kg (20,21). Sekerden (17,20) reported that the overall means for withers height were 96.30 and 106.30 cm at 6 and 12 months of age. The same researcher showed that the overall means of body length, chest depth, chest width, chest circumference, and cannon-bone circumference for 6 and 12 months of ages were 90.

Use of Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines Algorithm to Predict Body Weight from Body Measurements of Anatolian buffaloes in Türkiye

“…Anatolian buffaloes are classified as a river type belonging to the Mediterranean group within the water buffalo group [ 1 , 6 , 7 ]. According to the literature, the existence of the buffalo species in Türkiye is thought to date back to 3000 BC [ 8 ]. In 2021, there were 186,000 head buffaloes in Türkiye according to the TUIK database [ 9 ].…”

“…At the age of 10–12 months, they turn black again. Anatolian buffaloes are very resistant to unexpected changes in feed and traditional diseases [ 8 ].…”

Medidas corporales y estimación de peso vivo en bucerros predestete en la provincia de Granma, Cuba

“…Por su parte Koray et al (2019) para estimar el peso vivo a través de medidas corporales formularon la siguiente ecución lineal: Yijklm = µ + Oi +BYj + BSk + Gl + b(X-X -) + eijklm.…”