Factors affecting conception rates in AI bred buffaloes in field conditions

Abstract

The objective of the study was to identify the factors affecting variation in conception rate of buffaloes inseminated by Murrah bulls’ frozen semen under field conditions. Total of 18,396 insemination records pertaining to 11,793 buffaloes that were inseminated artificially at BAIF’s field AI centers during the period of June 2010 to December 2014 in 3 states. Logistic regression analysis was used to compute the odds ratio and probability of conception rate. Records were classified according to agroclimatic zones, lactation order, season of insemination and body condition score. Agroclimatic zones, lactation order and body condition score showed significant variation. The overall conception rate was 48.01%. Conception rate of western plain zone of Uttar Pradesh was higher than other zones under study. Body condition score 3 was favourable where probability of conception was 0.51. Conception rate of first parity buffaloes was lower than other parities with the probability of 0.46. Conception rate increased in second parity with probability 0.52. Highest conception rate was found in fourth parity with probability 0.53. There was marginal difference between second to fifth parity. Season of insemination did not affect conception rate, however, the distribution of artificial inseminations was higher during the favourable season than that during lean-season. It could be inferred that the factors like agroclimatic zones, lactation order and body condition score should be considered while evaluating the conception rates in buffaloes.

Comparison of the conception rate after fixed time natural mating and artificial insemination in estrous synchronized Murrah buffaloes: A short communication

“…It was significantly (p<0.005) differed from each other. www.extensionjournal.com The expression of estrus in the present study are supported by Malik et al (2011) [32] , Parmar et al (2014) [37] , Thangapandiyan et al (2015) [53] and Kumar et al (2016) [28] , they recorded a100% estrus response by norgestomet + PMSG treated anestrus buffaloes under farm conditions. It was observed that the combined effect of progesterone priming of the brain for estradiol receptors and high endogenous estradiol with PMSG administration mainly responsible for behavioral signs (Cavalieri et al 1995) [16] .…”

“…The animals however suffer from inherent reproductive problems such as poor estrous expression and long calving intervals which limits its lifetime production specially in summer season (Prakash et al 2005) [42] . In addition, the incidences of silent heat are higher in summer than winter months (Khattab et al 1990;Tailor et al, 1990;Kassim and Nany, 1999;Prakash, 2002) [27,53,26,43] . In general, reproductive activity of buffaloes is mainly determined by day length, climate (ambient temperature and relative humidity) and nutrition (Singh et al 2000;Vale et al 2019) [50,56] .…”

“…In addition, poor estrus detection (30-40%) (Barkawi et al 1993) [9] , a variable duration of estrus (4-64 h) (Baruselli et al 2001) [10] are also responsible for declared it poor breeder. In India, during summer reproductive performance of buffaloes is reduced (Madan, 1988;Tailor et al 1990) [31,53] . The hormones like FSH, LH and P4 values are lower during summer as compared to winter season (Phogat et al 2016) [40] .…”