Weight gain of calves under sylvo-pastoral and agro-sylvo-pastoral farms

Abstract

The search for better performance is one of the main reasons for the diversification of farming practices. The objective of the present study was to situate the growth performance of young cattle reared under four types of farmers previously identified: Small sylvo-pastoralists (SSP), Large sylvo-pastoralists (LSP), Small agro-sylvopastoralists (SASP) and Large agro-sylvo-pastoralists (LASP). For this purpose, the weights at specific age at birth, at 3 months and at 6 months as well as the average daily gains (ADG) between 0-3 months and 0-6 months were collected on young cattle for the period from 0 to 6 months. The data were subjected to an analysis of variance with the type of farm as the main variation factor and the means were compared by the Student t-test using the R software. The results showed that the calves of LASP and SASP were heavier at birth, at 3 months and at 6 months compared to those of SSP and LSP (p<0.05) for all breeds studied. The same trends were observed for the ADGs of the different breeds except for those of the crossbreds which did not show any significant difference for the period from 0 to 3 months (p>0.05). The results of this study highlight that agro-sylvo-pastoral practices induce better performance in cattle compared to those of sylvo-pastoral farms.