Dependence of Beef Cattle Body Condition on Alive Weight and Its Adjustment by Feeding Level

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to increase the economic efficiency of beef production by the system of cow – calf by adjusting the feeding taking into account the point assessment of fatness of meat cows. For the effective production of beef is not enough to have highly productive animals and high quality feed. It is necessary to organize their rational use of feed. In technological groups animals have different live weight, and norms of feeding of meat cattle are calculated, generally, depending on live weight of animals. This is the wrong approach, because in the group (in the herd) animals can have the same living mass and have different energy requirements depending on the state of fatness. Adjusting the level of feeding depending on the fatness of animals will save expensive feed, as in the structure of the cost of beef a large share of the cost falls on feed (about 60%). In the course of the research, a high positive relationship between the live mass and the point assessment of the cows fatness (r=0.93 for Hereford and r= 0.95 for the Kazakh white-headed breed) was established, which allowed to determine the regression coefficients between the features. It is found that increasing body condition by 1 point increases the live weight of Hereford cattle 40.4 kg and in cows of Kazakh white-headed breed of 48.1 kg. This allowed us to determine the required changes in the feeding level for 90-100 days prior to calving to increase for cows with a body condition score of 1 by 3.02; 2 points – 2.67 to 3.02; 3 points on 1.70-2.55; 4 points at 1.32-1.70; 5-6 points to 0.85-0.91 EKE, for cows with a body condition score of 8 to reduce the level of feeding of 0.47-0.85 and EKE with fatness 9 points lower on 0,85-1,70 ECE. Thus, studies show that the organization of feeding depending on the condition, is a necessary tool for achieving economic efficiency of beef production on the system cow-calf.