Pre-weaning animals exit a flock through death induced by various reasons, causing significant economic losses to the goat producers. In this study, we investigated the survival from birth to weaning of Sirohi goat kids within framework of the survival analysis. Kid records were accessed from 1997 to 2017, with the information on 4417 pre-weaning animals of farmed Sirohi goat native to the Rajasthan State of India. A multivariable Cox regression was fitted to the data after checking the assumptions of regression. The explanatory variables were sex, type of birth, season of birth, birthweight, doe weight at kidding and year of birth. Model selection eliminated doe weight from the model, and sex, type of birth, season of birth, birthweight and year of birth were retained in the model. With model calibration also, these five covariates were retained in the model. The mortality on the first day after birth was 0.3%, constituting 3.5% of all pre-weaning mortality. The mortality until the end of weaning period was 7.8%. Regression analysis revealed that the higher birthweight at kidding was associated with reduced hazard of death among the kids. Male kids had higher hazards of death compared with female kids. The single-born kids had lower risks of death compared with twin-born kids after accounting for heterogeneity. The winter season had a very high adverse effect on the survival of the kids. With each passing year, risks of death decreased. The results of this study indicate that better survival of kids can be achieved by controlling both environmental and animal-related factors.

The objective of the study was to evaluate the effects of genetic and non-genetic factors on production of breeding bulls and semen quality parameters in Karan Fries crossbred male by fitting least squares analysis. Genetically, the animals were divided into three subclasses. The non-genetic factors were season of birth, period of birth, and age group with three subclasses each for season of birth and period of birth. Age group was classified into four subclasses. The traits generated in the study were number of males reaching semen donation stage (AFSC) and first freezing (AFSF), age at last semen collection (ALSC) and last freezing (ALSF), age at disposal (AD), and lifetime semen production traits (up to 1 year after first freezing). The effect of period of birth was significant for AFSC, AFSF, ALSC, and AD. It was also significant for total ejaculates produced in a year. The age group had significant effect on AFSF. Effect of genetic group was significant for freezable ejaculates produced in a year, for frozen semen doses produced in a year, and for number of ejaculates cryoprocessed in a year. Season had no statistically significant effect on any of the traits studied. The influence of period revealed that the most of the traits of breeding bulls improved after intermediate period, which could be due to better care, training, feeding, and other management practices in the latter years. However, no consistent trend could be established for the effects of genetic groups and other non-genetic causes on the traits considered.

No abstract

The unprecedented application of pesticides in Punjab, India during green revolution has lead to an environmental crisis due to the accumulation of persistent organic and pesticide pollutants in the environment and biota of this region. The present study aimed at estimating the abundance of pesticide contaminants in three biological matrices of 36 dogs suffering from malignant canine mammary tumor (mCMT) and 6 tumor free control dogs from Punjab, India. Presence of individual and total pesticides in canine biological samples, age and bodyweight of canine patients was assessed as a potential risk factor for mCMT using logistic regression analysis. Chi-square test was employed to determine tissue-specific accumulations of individual pesticides. Spearman's correlation coefficient was estimated to determine the association between the levels of total pesticides in different tissue matrices and with age and bodyweight of mCMT cases. Gas chromatography-ECD analysis of serum, mammary tissue and adjoining mammary adipose tissue revealed fourteen different pesticides including γ-HCH, α-HCH, dieldrin, aldrin, heptachlor, butachlor, p,p-DDT, o,p-DDT, p,p-DDD, p,p-DDE, L-cyhalothrin, permethrin, fipronil, and fenitrothion. Heptachlor, γ-HCH, aldrin and p,p-DDT were more frequently detected, whereas, p,p-DDE and o,p-DDT were the least common. Differential accumulation of pesticides in tissue matrices, particularly between serum and mammary tissue/adipose tissue was observed. We could not find any association between the total pesticide concentrations among serum, mammary tissue and mammary adipose tissue in mCMT cases. We found that the odds for individual pesticide for serum, mammary tissue and adipose tissue were associated with high uncertainties; however, the total pesticide concentration in mammary tissue was near non-significantly associated with higher risk of mCMT with low uncertainty. Statistically non-significant higher odds of CMT occurrence with increase in age was noticed No association between the concentration of total pesticides in different matrices and age and bodyweight of canine subjects was found.

The low grade ejaculates are very common in bulls. Low grade ejaculates might be due to age or non specific factors like thermal stress, transport and vaccination stress during the dynamic life of bulls. Lipid peroxidation of membrane induced sperm damage further aggravates the situation. Researches reveal that selection of sperm and antioxidant fortification play crucial role in improving the quality of semen. Different methods used for semen up-gradation like washing, sedimentation, swim up procedure and filtration like percoll gradient, glass wool, sephadex and sephadex ion exchanger with significant improvement in motility, Hypo osmotic swelling test reactivity, viability and acrosomal integrity. Antioxidants are added directly to extender at standard dose rate with positive result. Among different filtration column used sephadex ion exchanger (FS+IE) was superior over other in improving the semen quality especially when fortified with Vitamin E. Moreover a complete protocol is required, which contain both antioxidant fortification and sperm selection simultaneously to handle the low grade semen from sub-fertile bulls.