EVALUATION OF MODELS FOR LACTATION CURVES FOR BUNAJI, FRIESIAN AND FRIESIAN-BUNAJI CROSSBRED COWS IN NIGERIA

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Department of Agricultural Science

ABSTRACT
This study investigated the suitability of the available models in representing the pattern of milk production of Bunaji, Friesian and Friesian-Bunaji crossbred cows in Nigeria. The models evaluated were Gamma, Modified Gamma and the Inverse Polynomial functions. Five hundred and eighty-four lactations were used. These comprised of 205, 111 and 268 records from Bunaji, Friesian and Friesian-Bunaji crossbreds. The lactation records covered a period of 18 years and the records were from cows in the first five parities. Each lactation was fitted to each of the models. The curve and production indicators namely initial week average daily production (initprd), peak week (pwk), peak production (Mxprod), persistency (s) and total production per lactation (Tprod) were obtained for each model. These parameters were subjected to least squares analysis considering parity, lactation length, season and year of calving as factors. A combined analysis was also undertaken for the breeds incorporated as additional factor to evaluate the effects of the curve and production parameters. Multiplicative factors were developed for estimating 44 week (305-day) production for each breed. Results showed the average lactation lengths for Bunaji, Friesian and Friesian-Bunaji crossbreds were 32, 50 and 36 weeks, respectively. The average milk production per lactation varied between 928-1010 kg for Bunaji, 3800-4300 kg for Friesians and 1860-2000 kg for Friesian-Bunaji crossbreds. The average initial week daily productions were 4.69, 8.39 and 8.69 kg while the corresponding peak productions were 6.4, 18.9 and 11.4 kg, respectively. The observation showed that Gamma function was the most suitable when compared to other functions. The function had the least deviations comparing the observed with the estimated for each breed. Also, the function estimated the production parameters with a higher precision compared to others. The Co-efficient of determination (R2) was highest under the Gamma function. The values were 84% for Bunaji, 74% for Friesian-Bunaji and 68% for Friesian cows. The values obtained using the Inverse polynomial functions were 70% for Bunaji, 61% for Friesian-Bunaji and 52% for Friesians. Values under the Modified Gamma function were relatively closer to those of Gamma function. Multiplicative factors obtained using the Gamma function were found to be more precise than those based on the other two functions. Bunaji and Friesian-Bunaji crossbred cows had significantly (P<0.05) higher persistency than the Friesian cows. This is due to the higher adaptability to the environment by the two relatively more indegenous breeds. Some factors were found to have effects on the production pattern of the cattle in Nigeria. These included breed, parity, lactation length,season and year of calving of the cows. Furthermore, all the factors enumerated above had effects on the persistency of milk production. Prom this study, the phenotypic correlation between the curve and the production parameters showed that the initial week average daily production and the peak production correlated very highly (P<0.001) with the total production. This therefore could be a useful and readily available tool to be used in culling low milk producing animal from the herd. Finally, as a result of the relatively short lactation length observed in Bunaji and Friesian-Bunaji crossbred cows, it is possible and practicable to embark on early re-breeding of these breeds of cattle to boost the milk production as well as increasing the herd size provided there is a corresponding improvement in the management.

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