Growth performance of yearling F1 progeny of different crossbred beef cattle

Abstract

Bangladesh has a great demand of beef but it has been facing demand and supply mismatches due to insufficient production and supply of beef, low carcass yield of native cattle and recent no-cattle export policy of a long bordered neighboring country. Thus, the present work was undertaken with an objective to develop market beef cattle of average >150 Kg carcass weight by 24 months with an average FCR of <6.50 under on farm feeding and management condition. Aiming at developing breeding bulls the native dams of BCB-1 (BLRI Cattle Breed 1) were inseminated with the imported frozen semen of Brahman, Simmental, Charolais and Limousin. The crossbred progeny of different assorted F1 genotypes were being selected and their production and breeding performance were evaluated and compared with BCB-1. All pregnant (> 6 months of gestation period) cows were in pre-natal care, and all calves were raised in a single plane of nutrition and management. All crossbred progeny performed better than BCB-1 in terms of live weights and average daily gains. Among the crossbreds, Charolais×BCB-1 had the highest (p<0.001) birth weight (27.5±1.52 kg) followed by Brahman×BCB-1 (24.1±1.23), Simmental×BCB-1 (21.9±1.78), Limousin×BCB-1 (19.8±1.39) and BCB-1×BCB-1 (18.4±1.09), and the genotypes differences were highly significant (p<0.001). In average growth curve, Simmental cross grew faster followed by Charolais, Limousin, Brahman crosses and purebred BCB-1. The genotype×environment interaction was only observed in birth weight. Purebred BCB-1 had the lowest daily DM intake and showed the lowest FCR in all ages compare to other crosses. Calf scour and alopecia occurred in all genotypes. In this breeding program, calf mortality was found as 5.26%. Simmental×BCB-1 is performing as the best among the five genotypes in terms of growth up to 12 month of age.

Effect of Breeding Bulls on Growth Performance and Survivability of Brahman Crossbreds in Rural Areas of Bangladesh

“…Brahman crossbred calves mean birth weight ranged from 17.52 to 27.12 kg. This result is in accordance with the findings of 24.1±1.23 kg reported by Mostari et al (2017) for Brahman × BLRI cattle breed-1, 21.40±0.24 kg reported by Haque et al (2016) for 50% Brahman crossbred calves. The observed mean birth weight in this experiment was lower than the 32.6, 35.5 and 30.7 kg average birth weight for Brahman cross calves reported by Dundon et al (2012), Cunningham et al (2005) and Antonio et al (2006).…”

“…Overall calf mortality was 2.13% up to 12 months of age. This mortality rate was much lower compared to 5.26% for different beef cattle crossbred (Mostari et al, 2017), 9.7% for F1 Fogera crosses cattle in Ethiopia (Amuamuta et al, 2006), 14.5% up to 12-month of age for Local zebu × Holstein crossbred calves in Ethiopia (Ferede et al, 2014), 24.5% reported by Kebamo et al (2019) for Boran calves in Ethiopia. This improvement possibly due to increased farmers consciousness toward colostrum intake, better housing and feeding and other managemental activities during and immediately after calving.…”

Pre and Post-Weaning Growth and Survivability of Three Genotypes of Cattle at TALIRI Tanga, Tanzania

“…Crossing Boran cattle with exotic breeds increases the survivability of the cross-bred cattle in hot/humid environments compared to pure exotic breeds, as found in the current study, and is consistent with the findings of other studies reported by [46][47][48][49]. This might be due to physiological and morphological modifications that crossbred animals experience in comparison to their exotic parents, which help them adapt to hot, humid environments that are typically characterized by high temperatures and humidity.…”

Non-genetic factor and genetic parameter analysis for growth traits in Sumba Ongole (SO) cattle

“…Despite, several study were reported that season did not have significant effect to WW in Bos indicus breeds cattle such as Fogera (Addisu et al, 2010), Ongole grade (Hartati et al, 2015), Brahman (Hernandez et al, 2015) and Kaswati et al (2013). BW= birth weight; WW = weaning weight; YW= yearling weight; ADG 1 = average daily gain of pre-weaning; ADG 2 = average daily gain of post-weaning crossbred cattle between Bos indicus and Bos taurus (Mostari et al, 2017). In addition, Wijono et al (2006) reported that season had significant effect to YW but did not have significant effect to WW in Ongole grade cattle.…”