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Growth and conception in continuously underfed Brahman heifers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2010

R. R. Vera
R. R. Vera
Affiliation:
Tropical Pastures Programme, Centro International Agricultura Tropical, Cali, Colombia
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Abstract

The objective of the experiment was to determine the effects of different, sustained levels of undernutrition on the reproductive performance of Brahman heifers, and on their subsequent growth to adulthood, when reared exclusively on a low-quality tropical pasture.

Irrespective of the live-weight gains realized between weaning and the target weight of 270 kg, heifers on all treatments conceived at a similar mean weight of 290 kg. Nevertheless, heifers on the low weight-gain treatment had a significantly different relationship of cumulative conceptions to weight, which was confirmed when Cox's proportional hazard model was fitted to the data, using a dummy variable to represent treatment effect.

A Gompertz growth model was fitted to the live weight of each individual animal. A significantly larger mean asymptotic weight was observed for the low weight-gain treatment, which was unrelated to the number of calvings or weanings, or to the total weight of calves weaned per animal. Asymptotic weights were positively correlated with first conception weight and age, both within and across treatments.

The implications of drastic post-weaning undernutrition and continued suboptimal feeding are discussed briefly.

Keywords

Brahmangrowthheifersreproductive performanceunderfeeding
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Production , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , August 1991 , pp. 45 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © British Society of Animal Science 1991

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