HOME JOURNALS CONTACT

Journal of Biological Sciences

Year: 2003 | Volume: 3 | Issue: 8 | Page No.: 726-740
DOI: 10.3923/jbs.2003.726.740
A Comparative Study of Productive and Reproductive Performance and Estimates of Heritability for Economic Traits in Different Genetic Groups of Cattle Available at Baghabarighat Milk Pocket Area of Bangladesh
P. K. Das, S. Z. Ali, A.B.M.M. Islam and B.K. Roy

Abstract: The study was conducted at Baghabarighat milk pocket area to observe the productive and reproductive performance of the crossbred of Sahiwal x Friesian, Sahiwal x Pabna, Friesian x Pabna and Pabna x Pabna during the period from 1990 to 1998. Comprising four genetic groups data of 41 Sahiwal x Friesian, 72 Sahiwal x Pabna, 55 Friesian x Pabna and 18 Pabna x Pabna were considered to evaluate birth weight of calves, age at puberty, gestation length, service per conception, post partum heat period, lactation length, and daily milk yield. Five Sahiwal and four Friesian sires were used for the crossbreeding. The exotic sire effect of individuals on their daughters were also evaluated in this study. Statistical analysis of the results showed that the genetic group had a significant effect on birth weight (P<0.001), age at puberty (P<0.001), post partum heat period (P<0.01), lactation length (P<0.01) and daily milk yield (P<0.001). But genetic group had no significant effect on gestation length and number of services per conception. The performance of SL x F cows with regard to birth weight of calves (26.35±0.35 kg), age at puberty (25.21±0.55 months), lactation length (260.38±4.48 days) and daily milk yield (10.56±0.14 litres), was found to be better among the other genetic groups. The best performance for the trait service per conception (1.29±0.13) and post partum heat period (104.82±6.53 days) was observed in Pabna x Pabna cows. F x Pabna grades had a slightly shorter gestation length (280.59±0.91 days) than the other genetic groups. So it can be concluded that SL x F crossbred are well ahead to other genetic groups in respect of productive aspect, whereas F x Pabna crosses show the remarkable performance both for production and reproduction. Under this consideration the F x Pabna grades ranked first in over all merit followed by SL x F, SL x Pabna and then Pabna x Pabna cows. Individual sire effect was found significant on birth weight (P<0.05) and average daily milk yield (P<0.05) in SL x F genetic group, on birth weight (P<0.05), age at puberty (P<0.05) and lactation length (P<0.05) in SL x Pabna genetic group and on lactation length (P<0.05) and average daily milk yield (P<0.05) in F x Pabna genetic group. The pooled estimates of heritability for birth weight, age at puberty, gestation length, service per conception, post partum heat period, lactation length and daily milk yield were 0.44±0.30, 0.14±0.17, 0.25±0.21, 0.03±0.12, 0.33±0.26, 0.46±0.33 and 0.43±0.27 respectively. In this study the h2 estimates of reproductive traits were found lower than that of productive traits which indicate that these traits are mostly influenced by managemental factors rather than genetic variability.

Fulltext PDF

How to cite this article
P. K. Das, S. Z. Ali, A.B.M.M. Islam and B.K. Roy , 2003. A Comparative Study of Productive and Reproductive Performance and Estimates of Heritability for Economic Traits in Different Genetic Groups of Cattle Available at Baghabarighat Milk Pocket Area of Bangladesh. Journal of Biological Sciences, 3: 726-740.

Related Articles:
© Science Alert. All Rights Reserved