Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate some growth characteristics Birth Weight (BW), Adjust Weaning Weight (AWW) and Daily Weight Gains (DWG) between birth and weaning of bovine females managed under grazing conditions in the Mojana subregion of the department of Sucre Colombia. Methods / Statistical Analysis: Made an analysis of the information of the productive records of the offspring born from the year 2017 – 2018 in 3 livestock farms. The genetic analysis belonged to the race Zebu, F1 Romo x Zebu and F1 Simmental x Zebu was done. The statistical model used included the effects of year of birth, weaning, farm, racial group, paternal and maternal race. For the analysis, the minimum squares method was used by the PROC GLM procedure, contained in the Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Tukey’s multiple comparison test was performed to determine differences between means, when these differed statistically in the analysis of variance. Findings: The mean for BW, AWW and DWG were 27.5 ± 3.1; 155.5 ± 3.2 kg and 485, ±06 gr/day respectively. The effects of racial group, paternal type and farm were significant (p≤0.05; p≤0.01). On the contrary, the year of birth, as well as the year of adjusted weaning, did not significantly affect (p>0.05) the characteristics analyzed. Application: There are differences between the genetic groups for the analyzed characteristic, which can be used in animal genetic improvement programs in the farms analyzed, in order to achieve increases in the productive variable of growth.

Keywords: Birth Weight, Crossing, Genetic Groups, Pre-Weaning Daily Gain, Weaning Weight