4. Effect of breeding bulls on growth performance and survivability of Brahman crossbreds in rural areas of Bangladesh

Abstract

This research aimed to determine breeding bull effect on growth performance and survivability of Brahman crossbreds (50% local-50% Brahman). Conducted study used 687 records on crossbred calves from seven Brahman bull imported from USA. The data was collected from record sheet maintained by artificial insemination field workers of respective areas, then arranged and statistically analyzed. Birth weight, weight at one, six, nine, twelve, twenty four-month and average daily gain of crossbreds progeny was significantly (p<0.001) affected by sire. Weights of Brahman crossbred calves ranged from 15-27, 21-43, 50-67, 83- 185, 116-252, 144-311 and 266-694 kg at birth, one, three, six, nine, twelve and twenty four-month, respectively. Highest birth weight (27.12±0.59 kg) was obtained for 7BR-522, one-month (41.42±1.11 kg) for 14BR-41, three-month (67.63±5.40 kg) for 14BR-43, six-month (163.0±14.05 kg) for 14BR-43, ninemonth (252.75±34.51 kg) for 14BR-43, twelve-month (282.0±12.35 kg) for 14BR-41 and twenty four month weight (641.48±38.73 kg) for 7BR-522, respectively. Average daily gain ranged from 356.33-704.87 g/d while highest was found 722.21 g/day for 7BR-527 and lowest was found 365.33 g/d for bull 14BR. Strong positive phenotypic correlations were found between weights at six and nine-month (0.9), six and twelve-month (0.78), nine and twelve-month (0.85) and twenty-four month weight with six (0.67), nine (0.73) and twelve (0.78) month weight. The average calf mortality rate estimated 2.13%. The findings of the conducted study exposed that growth performance of crossbred progeny varied with bull and their highly appreciable growth along with survival rate will helpful to enhance beef cattle farming in Bangladesh.