Productive Performance of Crossbred Dairy Cattle

This study was conducted to evaluate the productive performances of crossbred dairy cattle at Holetta agricultural research center’s dairy farm. A total of 6685 performance records were used and analyzed to determine the effect of period of calving, season of calving, parity and genetic group. Parameters used as indicator of productive performances were lactation milk yield (LMY), daily milk yield (DMY) and lactation length (LL). The GLM procedure of SAS 2004 was used for analysis. The overall least square means and standard errors for Lactation milk yield (LMY), daily milk yield (DMY) and lactation length (LL) were 2204.05 ± 21.12 kg, 6.88 ± 0.05 kg and 326.69 ± 2.03 days, respectively. Result of fixed effect analysis indicated that calving period, genetic group and parity were significantly (p<0.001) influenced all productive traits. LMY, DMY, and LL were sensitive to seasonal variation. Comparisons among the crosses revealed a clear-cut difference among the genetic groups. Milk production in the first generation crosses increased more compared to second generations. There were marked decline in performance among 50% F1 (Borena dam x Holstein Friesian sire), F2 (F1 dam x F1 sire) and F3 (F2 dam x F2 sire) from 2203kg of milk to 1697 and 1522 kg, respectively. The 75% first generation was superior LMY compared with other genetic groups and produced about 34.2 %, 74.3%, 94.3% and 45.9% more milk than 50% F1, F2, F3 and 75% second generations, respectively. The higher milk yield of 75% first generation and 50% F1 crosses from other genetic groups could be associated with higher heterosis effect in F1, higher milk gene in 75% and longer lactation length. Based on the productive performances evaluation, the results of LMY, DMY, and LL for high grade (75% first generation) in the present study revealed that performances were continued to increase with increasing proportion of exotic gene.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Author Getahun Kefale, Tadesse Million, Hundie Direba, Tadesse Yosef
Maintainer EIAR
Last Updated December 30, 2023, 20:30 (UTC)
Created March 18, 2023, 12:50 (UTC)
contributor Tsega, Solomon
creator Getahun Kefale
date 2023-01-11T00:00:00
harvest_object_id feb8954e-3830-4ab0-9e88-7c5710c4fca8
harvest_source_id b7467cdf-8775-49cd-b162-b68283e0d13b
harvest_source_title EIAR Open Research Data
identifier https://doi.org/10.20372/eiar-rdm/LJH3YZ
metadata_modified 2023-01-11T07:00:01