Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T11:15:58.852Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Simplified milk-recording protocols adapted to low-input environments with very small herd size

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2008

D. Duclos ,
S. Gokhale ,
R. Bacilieri  and
V. Ducrocq
D. Duclos
Affiliation:
UR337, Station de Génétique Quantitative et Appliquée, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, 78352 Jouy-en-Josas, France
S. Gokhale
Affiliation:
Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF), Central Research Centre, Uruli Kanchan (Pune), Maharashtra, India
R. Bacilieri
Affiliation:
Mission des Relations Internationales, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, 147 rue de l’Université, 75338 Paris, France
V. Ducrocq*
Affiliation:
UR337, Station de Génétique Quantitative et Appliquée, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, 78352 Jouy-en-Josas, France
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Milk production data from Holstein × Zebu cows in small farms (2.4 cows per farm on average) in Maharashtra, India, followed by Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF), an Indian non-governmental organisation, were analysed to evaluate the impact of simplified milk-recording systems. The aim was to investigate, in developing tropical areas, less-costly protocols compared with the one currently implemented at BAIF, used as a reference. The latter can be considered an ‘AT2’ protocol with the recording made by specialised technicians at 2-week intervals. The simplified protocols were simulated from an initial data file by sampling test days according to each protocol. Bias and accuracy on the 305-day cow milk production and on the resulting reliability of the estimated breeding value of bulls were the criteria used in the comparison with the reference protocol. One type of simplified protocol considered an increase in the interval between two tests to at least 4 and up to 8 weeks. Another alternative studied corresponded to the situation where milk yield information measured by the farmer is collected by the artificial insemination technicians themselves when visiting a farm. This could be an option in the case of very small herd sizes (two or three cows). The results suggest that simplifying the current milk-recording protocol leads to a clear decrease in accuracy of estimating 305-day cow production but it has a limited effect on the reliability of bull proofs. No economic comparison was carried out, but the results strongly suggest that properly managed simplified milk-recording schemes could permit a substantial decrease of costs of milk recording per cow without damaging the efficiency of progeny testing in tropical areas with small herd size. Moreover, with the proposed simplified milk-recording protocols, up to three to four times more bulls could be tested with the same number of records.

Keywords

dairy cowsIndiamilk recordingtropics
Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 160 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © The Animal Consortium 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hammami, H, Bedhiaf Romdhani, S, Djemali, M 2004. Simplification of milk recording in dairy cattle for low input systems. In Performance recording of animals. State of the art, 2004 (ed. M Guellouz, A Dimitradou and C Mosconi), pp. 209–214. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Netherlands.Google Scholar
International Committee for Animal Recording 2004. International agreement of recording practices. Guidelines approved by the general assembly held in Sousse, Tunisia, 2004. Retrieved December 14, 2006, from http://www.icar.org/Documents/Rules%20and%20regulations/Guidelines/Guidelines_2005_final_low_resolution.pdf.Google Scholar
MacDaniel, BT 1969. Accuracy of sampling procedures for estimating lactation yields: a review. Journal of Dairy Science 52, 1742–1761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madalena, FE, Agyemang, K, Cardellino, RC, Jain, GL 2002. Genetic improvement in medium- to low-input systems of animal production. Experiences to date. Proceedings of the fifth world congress on genetics applied to livestock production, vol. 18. INRA, Montpellier, France, pp. 443–446.Google Scholar
Mangurkar, BR 1997. Progeny testing of bulls: NGO’s experience in India. ICAR Technical Series No 1. In International workshop on animal recording for smallholders in developing countries (ed. KR Trivedi), pp. 53–58. ICAR, Rome, Italy.Google Scholar
Mangurkar, BR, Gokhale, SB 1995. Field performance recording of Holstein–Friesian crossbreds in Maharashtra. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 65, 1329–1333.Google Scholar
Mason IL and Buvanendran V 1982. Breeding plans for ruminant livestock in the tropics, FAO. Retrieved December 14, 2006, from http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/X6536E/X6536E02.htm.Google Scholar
Pander, BL, Thompson, R, Hill, WG 1992. The effect of increasing the interval between recordings on genetic parameters of test day yields of British Holstein–Friesian heifers. Animal Production 56, 159–164.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, LR, Dekkers, JC 1994. Random regressions in animal models for test-day production in dairy cattle. Proceedings of the fifth world congress on genetics applied to livestock production (ed. C Smith, JS Gavora, B Benkel, J Chesnais, W Faiefull, JP Gibon, BW Kennedy and EB Burnside), pp. 443–446 , vol. 18. University of Guelth, Canada.Google Scholar
World Bank 1998. Operations Evaluation Department: India’s dairy revolution. Retrieved December 14, 2006, from http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSearch/5CD55498ABC9CEDA852567F5005D9153/$file/168precis.pdf.Google Scholar