The present investigation was carried out with the objective of performance appraisal of HF × Gir cattle with respect to production and reproduction traits. The performance records of 421 HF × Gir half breed cattle sired by 48 bulls were collected for production and reproduction traits spread over a period of 39 years (1977 to 2015) from Research-Cum Development Project on Cattle, Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri District Ahmednagar (Maharashtra). The overall least squares means for first lactation total milk yield (FLTMY), first lactation 300 days milk yield, first lactation length (FLL), First dry period (FDP), First service period (FSP), First calving interval (FCI) and Age at first calving were 2701.77±46.04, 2511.70 ±37.40, 320.43± 3.04, 88.40±2.58, 130.14±3.19, 409.17±3.25 and 990.69±6.53 days, respectively. Further, the least squares analysis revealed non significant effect of season of calving and age at first calving groups on all first lactation reproduction and milk production traits. Whereas, the effect of period of calving was found to be highly significant on FLTMY, FL300DMY and AFC and nonsignificant on FLL, FDP, FSP and FCI. However, the effect of sire was found to be significant on FLTMY, FL300DMY and AFC. The heritability of all traits except FCI and FSP were moderate in magnitude which indicated these traits are more influenced by additive genetic variability and hence there is more scope for improvement by selection. The highly significant genetic and phenotypic correlation was found between production and reproduction traits.

The performance records of 509 Phule Triveni cows maintained at RCDP, MPKV, Rahuri (Maharashtra) during 1976 to 2012 were used to estimate heritability and genetic and phenotypic correlation of lifetime performance traits. The mixed model analysis using LSML used for estimation of variance components considering sire as a random effect, season and period of birth and age at first calving groups as fixed effects. Period of birth was significantly influencing almost all the lifetime performance traits, whereas season of birth did not influence any of the trait considered in the study. Age at first calving significantly influenced the LTMY3 and 4, HL and BE. The overall least squares means of 8712±271 kg, 12093±265 kg, 12767±207 kg for LTMY3, LTMY4, ALTMY and 2863±29 days, 1875±28 days and 77.00±0.71% were observed for HL, PL and BE, respectively. Heritability estimates for LTMY3, LTMY4 and ALTMY were medium (0.41±0.26, 0.36±0.32 and 0.15±0.11) for milk yield traits indicating that sire selection on the basis of their progeny performance along with improved management is likely to bring desirable improvement in the herd. Whereas the heritability estimates for HL, PL and BE (0.10±0.12, 0.10±0.12 and 0.01±0.11) were low and had high SE indicating that these traits were influenced by non-genetic causes and can be improved through better management. The genetic and phenotypic correlations of actual lifetime milk yield (ALTMY) with herdlife (HL) and productive life (PL) were very high close to 1 and were comparatively higher than the other lifetime performance traits under study.

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The 140 day old "Vencob-400" chicks, which were divided into seven treatment groups with four replicates per group (Five chicks per replicate) i.e. 20 chicks per treatment groups. Dietary treatments consisted of basal diet T 0 (Control), T 1 , T 2 and T 3 with T 4 , T 5 and T 6 consist of 1, 2 and 3 per cent cinnamon while 1, 2 and 3 per cent ginger, respectively. Body weight and feed consumption were recorded at weekly interval. Feed conversion ratio, dressing percentage, economics of broiler production were calculated. Cinnamon and ginger feeding were done separately and compared by completely randomized design (CRD). The body weight of the 2.0% (T 2 ) cinnamon and 1% ginger (T 4 ) group was significantly (P≤0.05) higher than the other groups. The average feed consumption was significantly highest (3966.85 g/b) in control group and lowest (3793.30 ± 05.94 g/b) in 2.0% cinnamon (T 2 ) supplemented group. No mortality was observed entire experiment. Highest profit per bird was observed in T 4 (Rs. 24.17) followed by T 2 (21.15), T 1 (18.27) and other treatments while lowest in T 3 (8.47).Similarly highest cost benefit ratio was found in T 4 supplemented with 1% ginger powder followed by T 2 , T 1 , T 5 , T 0, T 3 and T 6 . From the result of present study it was concluded that dietary inclusion of 2.0 % cinnamon and 1.0 % ginger can be used as growth promoters for more profit per bird.