Factors affecting production of F₁ crossbred dairy cattle in West Bengal

K C Dhara, N Ray* and R Sinha

Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, Kolkata-700 037
* Department of Veterinary Pathology, West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences
drkeshabdhara@indiatimes.com

Summary

Season of birth had no influence on age at first, second and third calving, lactation length and 300 days' milk yield of three consecutive lactations of Jersey X Hariana, Holstein Friesian X Hariana and Brown Swiss X Hariana cattle in West Bengal except first lactation length. First lactation length of cattle calved in the monsoon was higher than those calved during summer and winter season. The influence of different genetic groups was significant in case of age at first and third calving and 300 days' milk yield of three consecutive lactations.

It was found that productive efficiency was better in either B x H cross or F x H crosses.

Key Words: Age of calving, half bred, lactation length, milk yield at 300 days, season of birth

Introduction

India possesses the largest cattle and buffalo population in the world but average milk production per cow or buffalo is very low in comparison with advanced countries. Low milk production in India is probably due to low genetic potential for milk production, poor nutrition, management and adverse agro climatic conditions. The state of West Bengal is also blessed with a high cattle and buffalo population but in relation to milk production the problem is the same. To cope with the problem, various breeding strategies are in vogue with adoption of exotic germplasm for higher milk production since 1960.

The present study was conducted with the object to study the adaptation of exotic germplasm in the tropical agro-climates of West Bengal with the aim to reduce the age of first calving, calving interval, and extend lactation length as well as 300 days' milk yield and thus to get a more economic return from dairy farming. The Hariana breed was taken as a base population with exotic germplasm drawn from Jersey, Holstein Friesian and Brown Swiss. Apart from the different genetic groups, production effects were also studied in different seasons viz. winter, summer and monsoon. Genetic parameters were related to all the productive, reproductive and economic traits.

The present study includes age at first, second and third calving, lactation length and 300 days' lactation yield of three consecutive lactations in Jersey X Hariana (J X H), Holstein Friesian X Hariana (F X H) and Brown Swiss X Hariana (B X H) half bred cows in a organized farm of West Bengal.

Materials and methods

The present study consists of the data on three lactations of Jersey x Hariana, Brown Swis x Hariana and Holstein Friesian x Hariana cross-bred cattle collected from the "All India co-ordinated Research Project (AICRP)" on cattle, the Haringhata unit of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR. The Haringhata/Kalyani complex is situated at latitude of 23.5° N and longitude of 89⁰E and an altitude of 9.75 mr above the mean sea level located close to the tropic of cancer. Being close to the tropics the recorded temperature is as high as 38°C in summer with the minimum ranging between 10 and 11 °C in mid winter. The annual rainfall is fairly high ranging between 1000 and 2000 mm.

In the Haringhata farm complex, the herd is maintained on semi-commercial lines with uniform pattern of feeding, breeding, management, and health control programme. The feeding of the animals is according to age, body weight, genetic group, stage of lactation and quantity of milk produced. During the experimental research, the nutritional requirements were met with concentrate, and green fodder cultivated in the farm. Calves are weaned on the 3rd day after birth and good males are retained as breeding stock. The animals are milked twice daily at 12 hrs interval by hand milking. The history and pedigree sheets incorporating all economic traits and other records of each animal were maintained properly in the farm.

The collected data were partitioned according to the seasons. Seasons are:

• Winter (S1) November to February
• Summer (S2) March to June.
• Monsoon (S3) July to October.

Average temperature and relative humidity of the said three seasons are noted in Table 1.

For the study of genotype and phenotype of some important economic traits, three genetic groups of crossbred cattle are taken into consideration. These were (i) JerseyxHariana. (JxH), (ii) Brown SwisxHariana. (BxH) and (iii) Holstein FriesianxHariana (FxH).

The present study was made on age at first, second and third calving, lactation length and 300 days' lactation yield of three consecutive lactations. Age at first, second and third calving indicated actual age of calving. Lactation length measured the number of days the animal remains in lactation which influences the persistency of total milk yield. Generally cows are allowed for milking up to 300 days. Cumulative milk yield was recorded from 4^th day following calving up to 300 days.

Statistical Methodology

The effect of the different genetic groups and seasons of calving on the variability of different important economic traits were estimated by analysis of variance. The formulae used for statistical analysis were:

Y_ijk = μ+B_i+S_j+e_ijk

Where:

Y_ijk = K^th animal of the i^th breed under j^th season
μ = overall mean,
Bi = Effect of breed (i = 1 to 3),
Sj = Effect of season (j = 1 to 3) and
eijk = Random error on observation distributed NID (0,σ²e)

From the above model, it was calculated

CF = (GT) ²/N
SS_S (Between season) = ∑ Sj² - CF
SS_B (Between breed) = ∑ Bi² - CF
SS_T (Total) = ∑ Y_ijk² - CF
SSe (error) = SS_T - SS_S - SS_B

The critical difference test (CD test) was carried out for the traits, which showed significant differences. This is done to compare between the means of sub-classes by applying the following formula.

| B₁- B₂ | > t_1/2α(N-5) X √MSe (1/N₁ + 1/N₂)­

Results and discussion

Age at First/ Second/ Third Calving:

Effect of genetic group

Age at first calving of FxH was significantly higher than that of JxH and BxH while the difference of values in the later two genetic groups were not significant (Table 2).

Ages at second calving among genetic groups in the present study were not different.Age at third calving of F x H was the highest followed by B X H and J x H. However, there was no significant difference between J x H and B X H. The results of the present study are in agreement with those of  Bhattacharya (1982) although his work was only on first lactation.

Effect of season on age of calving

Ages at first, second and third calving were not affected by season of calving (Table 3).  This finding is in accordance with that of Rao et al (1984), Ulmek and Patel (1992) and contrary to Nagarcenkar and Rao (1982) and Gandhi and Gurnani (1987).

Lactation Length

Effect of genetic group

Lactation lengths of the three genetic groups were not statistically significantly different from each other (Table 4).

In the present investigation the lactation length was longer in first parity as compared to the second and third. The overall lactation length in the first, second and third parity is in agreement with reports of Yadav et al (1994) and Sreemannarayana and Rao (1995). Studies on first lactation by Choudhury (1978) revealed lower first lactation length whereas Samanta et al (1992) revealed higher value. The first lactation length studied by Manimohan et al (1984) was in close agreement with the present work.

Effect of season on calving

First lactation length of cattle calved in the monsoon was higher than those calved during summer and winter seasons (Table 5).

A significant effect of season on calving was previously reported by Roy et al (1987) and Yadav and Rathi (1991). Non-significant effects of season of calving on lactation length were observed by Bhat et al(1980), Nagarcenkar and Rao (1982), Rao et al (1984), Dalal et al (1993) and Sreemannarayana and Rao (1994).

300 Days' Milk yield

Effect of genetic group

Values for 300 days' milk yield of these three genetic groups were different (P<0.01) in all the three lactations. F x H and B x H produced more milk than J x H, crossbred dairy cattle in first and third lactation while B x H had higher average 300 days' milk yield than the other two genetic groups in second lactation with F x H higher than J x H (Table 6).

The findings of the present study agree with those of Bhat et al (1980) who also observed significant effect on 300 days' milk yield of Tharparkar cows. The data for 300 days' milk yield in the present study are in good agreement with those of Bhattacharya (1982), Yadav and Rathi (1991) and Gupta et al (1992). The present study was conducted over the first three lactations, while the observations of other workers were on single lactation or on pooled data.

Effect of season of calving

Season of calving showed no significant effect on 300 days' milk yield in first, second and third lactation (Table 7).  Nagarcenkar and Rao (1982), Rao et al (1984) and Gandhi and Gurnani (1987) also observed non-significant effect of season of calving on milk yield.

Conclusions

• Over all productive efficiency was found to be best in  B x H and F x H crosses.

• The farmers' socio economic conditions being very poor, the Jersey has been considered to be a more acceptable source of exotic germplasm because of lower feed requirement due to lighter body weight.

• However, the results of this study clearly indicate that in organized and elite farms, Brown Swiss and Holstein-Friesian should be the breeds of choice for cross breeding.

References

Bhat P N, Sharma B S and Garg R C 1980 Genetic studies on production traits in Tharparkar cattle. Indian Journal of Animal. Science.50: 71-78.

Bhattacharyya A K 1982 Studies on the genetic and non-genetic factors influencing some of the economic traits in Jersey x Hariana and Holstein x Hariana half bred cows. M.V.Sc. Thesis, B.C.K.V.V., Mohanpur, West Bengal,India.

Choudhury G 1978 Studies on the reproductive and production traits of Hariana type cows and some traits of there crossbred progenies. Ph.D. Dissertation, BCKVV, Mohanpur, West Bengal, India.

Dalal D S, Arora K C, Rathi, S S and Singh B 1993 Effect of period, season, parity and age at first calving on performance traits in Friesian x Hariana half bred cows. Indian Journal of Animal. Production and Management 9: 93-96.

Gandhi R S and Gurnani M 1987 Effect of non- genetic factors on first lactation traits of Sahiwal cows. Asian Journal of Dairy Research, 6: 64-68.

Gupta K, Dhillon J S and Parmar OS 1992 Evaluation of Jersey bulls for first lactation milk yield. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 62: 351-353.

Mani Mohan, Biswas S C and Sharma D 1984 Performance of Jersey cross-bred cattle in Bihar. Indian Journal of Animal Genetics and Breeding 6: 16-19.

Nagarcenkar R and Rao M K 1982 Performance of Tharparkar exotic crosses for productive and reproductive traits Indian Journal of Animal Science 52: 129-138.

Rao A V, Rao G N and Kumar M 1984 First lactation performance of Zebu, Zebu x Zebu and Europian x Zebu cows Indian Journal of Animal Science 54: 980-982.

Roy T C, Katpatal B C and Kumar M 1987 Genetic studies on age at first calving in Jersey cattle. Indian Veterinary Journal 64: 4,301-308.

Samanta A K, Mishra S K, Roy S K and Majumder S C 1992 Studies on the prediction of life time milk production in cross bred cows. Experimental Genetics 8: 5-10.

Sreemannarayana O and Rao A V N 1995 Economic characteristic of Ongole and Jersey x Ongole cows in Andhra Pradesh. Indian Veterinary Journal 72: 107-110.

Ulmek B R and Patel M M 1993 Age at first fertile service in Gir cattle. Indian Journal of Animal Reproduction 14: 35-36.

Yadav A S and Rathi S S 1991 Genetic evaluation of some performance traits in Hariana cattle. Asian Journal of Dairy Research 10: 103-110.

Yadav A S, Rathi S S, Arora D N and Singh B 1994 Genetic studies on some economic traits in Tharparkar cattle.International Journal of Animal Science 9: 123-126.

Received 21 December 2005; Accepted 19 January 2006; Published 11 April 2006

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