Fertility and reproductive performance of Landim and Africander females were compared using data collected from 1968 to 1981 at the Chobela Research Station in Mozambique. Breeds were managed together and grouped by age and sex, except when separated for breeding. Traits were relative fertility (probability of fertile females calving from the first breeding season), age at first calving, first ...

The communal grazing system is generally understood to have a low input, low output type of management. However, the actual inputs and outputs of the farmers are not well known and the farmers are often unaware of their problems. Although the causes of low calving percentage are well understood in commercial beef farming enterprises in South Africa, the same is not true for communal farming sys...

Data from insemination and calving events of Italian Holstein cows and heifers collected from January 1996 until December 2002 were used to estimate phenotypic and genetic parameter for some fertility traits. A validation procedure of the data based on gestation length and information on service sire was used. According to these procedure, in Italy 75.9 % of the calvings are associated to servi...

The objective of the present study was to quantify the relationships among body condition score (BCS; scale 1 to 5), live weight (WT) and milk production in Irish Holstein-Friesian spring calving dairy cows. Data were from 66 commercial dairy herds during the years 1999 and 2000. The data consisted of up to 9886 lactations with records for BCS or WT at least once pre-calving, or at calving, nad...

This study describes the occurrence of preterm calving in Great Britain and evaluates its associations with subsequent milk production and reproductive performances and survival on farm of dairy cows. A total of 53 British dairy farms and 5759 animals with detailed breeding and milk recording data available were used to form two study groups: preterm calving (calving occurring between days 266 ...

a total of 136,250 monthly test day milk records collected from 13,625 iranian holstein heifers (three times a day milking) calved between 1991 and 2001 and distributed over 264 herds were used to study the effects of some environmental factors influencing lacta-tion curve parameters as well as production characteristics. wilmink’s function (yt = w0 + w1t + w2e-0.05t) was fitted to individual l...

Calving ease is of economic importance in dairy cattle and should be considered in breeding programs. Economic values of direct and maternal calving ease were derived based on cost-benefit analysis and gene flow methodology. Marginal returns from dystocia reduction in primiparous dams were -$43 per phenotypic standard deviation compared with $300 for production. For an average mate, numbers of ...

The incidence of mortality and culling in Holstein-Friesian heifers from birth through first calving was determined on 19 dairy farms selected from across southern England. The outcome of 1097 calvings was determined. Size (BW, heart girth, crown-rump length and height at withers) and insulin-like growth factor-I concentration of live heifer calves were measured at a mean age of 26 ± 0.7 days (...

A total of 1385 lactation records of Tharparkar cattle collected from LRS Chandan, Jaisalmer spreading over a period of 33 years were utilized to assess the effects of period and season of birth/calving on age at first calving, calving interval and service period and also studied effect of parity on calving interval and service period. The least-squares means were 1821.86 ± 37.022 days, 414.16 ...

In most studies on beef cattle longevity, only the cows reaching a given number of calvings by a specific age are considered in the analyses. With the aim of evaluating all cows with productive life in herds, taking into consideration the different forms of management on each farm, it was proposed to measure cow longevity from age at last calving (ALC), that is, the most recent calving register...