The Influence of the Line on the Living Weight, Absolute and Average Daily Gain of Heiffs of the Ukrainian Black-and-white Dairy Breed
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The article highlights the analysis of the dynamics of living weight, absolute and average daily growth of heifers of the Ukrainian Black-and-White Dairy breed, which were raised under the conditions of advanced milk production technology and belonged to different lines, as well as the established influence of the line on the growth indicators of animals. It was established that at birth the heifers of the Marshall’s 2290977.95 line – 35.8 kg were the most massive, which exceeded the living weight of individuals of other lines by 0.7–2.3 kg, at the age of 3, 6 and 9 months the highest living weight had subsidiary descendants of bulls of the Elevevation’s 1491007.65 line, who in turn exceeded the descendants of others of the studied lines at the age of three months by 2.2–10.9 kg (р < 0.0001), at the age of six months – by 2.8–21.3 kg (p < 0.0001) and at the age of nine months – by 5.2–32.3 kg (р < 0.0001). At the age of 12 and 15 months, the female offspring of bulls of the Valiant’s 1650414.73 line had a higher living weight – 310.7 and 372.6 kg, respectively, which was 1.6–45.5 kg (p < 0.0001) and 4.6–48.2 kg (р < 0.0001) more than representatives of the rest of the studied lines. At the final stage of breeding, heifers of the Marshall’s 2290977.95 line had an advantage in living weight of 6.5–52.1 kg (p < 0.0001). At the same time, representatives of the Starbuck’s 352790.79 line had the lowest living weight in all age periods. The intralineal differentiation of the trait, reflected by the coefficient of variation, proves the effectiveness of the selection of heifers by living weight in each line, but it is necessary to determine the age periods when the selection will be most effective. During the growing period from birth to 18 months of age, the absolute increase in living weight varied at the level of 352.3–396.0 kg, with the highest indicator in heifers of the Marshall line at 2290977.95, and the lowest at the Starbuck line at 352790.79. The coefficient of variation of the indicator of absolute growth in individuals of the studied lines (14.8–51.9%) proves the possibility of its improvement in all age periods of cultivation, except for birth, due to selection methods. During the growing period, the average daily gain of heifers of different lines varied from 721 g in the representatives of the Marshall’s 2290977.95 line to 642 g in the Starbuck’s 352790.79 line with slight differentiation between the lines in different age periods. The influence of the line on the dynamics of live weight of heifers varied at the level of 5–15%, absolute and average daily live weight gain of 2–11%.
Source: Animal Breeding and Genetics
DOI: 10.31073/abg.68.01
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408340760