Effect of supplemented ration on some reproductive traits in Azeri Buffaloes of Iran J. Amini-Jabalkandi, Gh. Manafiazar, S. Razzagzadeh Animal science department-West Azerbaijan Agriculture and natural resource research center Corresponding author: J. Amini-Jabalkandi. Animal science department-West Azerbaijan Agriculture and natural resource center. P.O.Box365 – Email:
[email protected]
Abstract: Reproduction efficiency is one of the most important factors for productivity and profitably of dairy animals. Late or delayed oestrus in buffalo heifers is one of the major factors limiting its overall productive and reproductive performance. Feeding and general management have been reported to improve reproduction efficiency of buffaloes. Reproduction is partly affected by nutrition supplementation. Thus the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of supplemented ration on some reproductive traits in Azeri buffaloes. One hundred and twenty female buffalo calves with 8 months age were randomly divided into four groups (30 calves in each group). Calves received I) traditional ration (TR) II) TR plus 0.5 kg concentrate III) TR plus 1 kg concentrate IV) TR plus 1.5 kg concentrates till the age at first estrous. There was no difference between initial weights of calves before the treatments. The reproductive traits considered were age at first oestrus, weight at first oestrus, number of oestruses before gestation, age at gestation, age at calving. Although there were no significant differences between the all studied traits among treatments, the supplementation in Group 4 improved the traits somehow; in particular, treatment 4 decreased by 70 days the age at calving compared to treatment 1. This indicates that the W. Azerbaijan buffaloes suffer a nutritional deficiency in their lifetime and that quality /quantity supplementation of ration can improve their reproductive performance. Key words: Buffaloes, Supplemented nutrition, Reproduction traits, West Azerbaijan, Iran. Introduction - Buffalo is one of the native animals in north, north- west and southwest Provinces of Iran and it plays an important role in milk and meat production of these areas. There are nearly 500000 buffaloes in Iran, approximately 30% of which are reared in West Azerbaijan province. For many decades however, research for improvement the performance of this animal has been slow, scattered and uncoordinated and failed to achieve meaningful results. Consequently, it was believed that the low fertility and low production levels were inherent traits of this species. Fortunately, coordinated research in the past 25 years in Egypt, India, Japan and Taiwan supported the theory that low production levels are related to poor management and nutrition (El-Ashry, 1988). As other animal species, in buffaloes, the level of reproduction performance depends on the interaction of genetic and environment, and nutrition, as environmental factor, has important role in this case (Vale, et al 2006). Reproduction efficiency has important roles in determining the productivity and profitability of dairy animals. Late or delayed oestrus in buffalo heifers is one of the major factors limiting their productive 1284
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VIII World Buffalo Congress and reproductive performance. Feeding and general management have been reported to improve reproduction efficiency of buffaloes. Reproduction is partly affected by nutrition supplementation. Energy deficiency leads to acyclic cows, silent heat, delayed ovulation and follicular cysts (Lotthammer, 1991) Therefore balanced feeding is fundamental for milk production as well as for health and fertility. Feeding management in the west Azerbaijan is conventional and based on farmers experience. The buffaloes are in underfeeding conditions so that they cannot express their genetically and physiologically capacity (Mohseinpour et al 2003). Thus the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of supplemented ration on some reproductive traits in Azeri buffaloes. Material and methods - One hundred and twenty female buffalo calves with 8 months of age belonging to 61 herds of small holders in 16 villages were selected randomly and then divided into four groups (30 calves in each group) and were fed experimental rations. Treatments were I) Traditional ration (TR), II) TR plus 0.5 kg concentrate, III) TR plus 1 kg concentrate and IV) TR plus 1.5 kg concentrates. The concentrate contained 1.4 Mcal NEg /Kg, 14.5% CP, 0.8% Calcium and 0.4% Phosphorus. The treatments were fed to groups1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Calves of each groups received proportional ration and were weighted bimonthly till the first oestrous. Reproductive traits were age and weight at first oestrous (AFO and WFO respectively), number of oestrouses before gestation (NOG), age at gestation (GA), age at calving (CA) and weight at calving (CW). Collected data were analyzed using GLM with SPSS statistical software and mean of treatments compared with Duncan’s Multiple Range Test. Results and CONCLUSIONS - Mean and standard deviations of traits are shown in Table 1. The results showed that there were no significant differences in all traits considered among treatments (P>0.05) but increasing concentrate improved all traits. Age at first oestrous is an important factor because onset of oestrous is actually the beginning of both productive and reproductive performance. In this experiment, age at first calving of Azeri buffaloes was 999 till 1069 days, which is in agreement with Ganemi (1998). Tavakolian (1999) reported that age at first calving of Azeri buffaloes is 1380 days but this difference may be due to different management. Table1:
Mean and standard deviations of reproductive traits in buffaloes fed different diets.
Traits AFO (day) WFO (kg) NOG GA (day) CA (day) CW (kg)
Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
P value
647.6±22.0 304.1±7.1 5.3±1.3 756.2±38.9 1069.9±39.2 471.2±9.8
623.7±26.3 308.9±7.0 4.3±0.8 709.8±22.1 1023.9±21.7 478.8±10.3
612.0±21.5 313.6±6.6 3.7±0.8 690.3±30.1 1003.0±29.8 487.8±13.7
584.6±15.6 318.3±4.9 4.7±1.2 683.2±24.9 999.8±34.6 479.5±6.6
ns ns ns ns ns ns
AFO, age at first estrous (day); WFO, weight at first estrous (kg); NOG, Numbers of estrous before gestation; GA, gestation Age (day); CA, calving Age (day); CW, calving weigh (kg); Ns, not significant differences.
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VIII World Buffalo Congress In group 4 (TR + 1.5 kg concentrate) AFO, GA and CA were lower, although not significantly, than in group 1 (TR). Furthermore, WFO and CW were slightly higher in group 4 than in group 1.These findings are in agreement with Makker et al (1981), El-Ashry (1988), and Akhtar et al (2004). Although there were no significant differences among groups, all reproductive traits were improved by increasing concentrate supplementation so that in group 4 calving age was decreased by 70 days in comparison with group1. It can be concluded that reproductive traits in buffaloes can be improved with better management and, especially with better feeding, as supplementation of traditional ration in rural condition. Therefore it is recommended that other experiments with concentrate supplementation higher than 1.5 kg should be done. References - Akhtar, M.S., Saeed, M.A, Aleem, M., and Nazli Bashir, I. 2004. Effect of two dietary energy levels on attainment of age of puberty in Nili-Ravi buffalo heifers. Proceedings of 7 World Buffalo Congrress, Vol. 2: 384-390. El-Ashry, M.A. 1988. Impact of feeding and management on buffalo maturity. Proceedings of II World Buffalo Congress. New Delhi, India, 1988. Vol. II, Part II, pp. 548-555. El-serafy,A.M. 1991. Feeding riverian buffaloes for milk/dual purpose production. In: FAO. Feeding dairy cows in the tropics. Andrew Speedy and René Sansoucy. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0413e/T0413E09.htm. Ghanemi A. 1998. Buffalo population and production in Iran. Buffalo Newsletter, 10: 12-14. Lotthammer, K., L.1991. Influence of nutrition on reproductive performance of the milking/ gestating cow in the tropics. In: FAO. Feeding dairy cows in the tropics. Andrew Speedy and René Sansoucy. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome. pp. 36-47. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0413e/ T0413E04.htm. Makker, G.S., N.S. Malik, O.P. Takker and J.S. Ichhponani. 1981. Effect of plane of nutrition on the growth rate and puberty age of buffalo heifers. Ind. J. Anim. Sci. 51: 408. Mohsenpour, A.; R., Pirmohammadi, and Q., Manafi azar. 2003. Breeding of buffaloes in West Azerbaijan of Iran I. Management. Proceeding of 7th World Buffalo Congress, Vol. II: 535-537. Tavakkolian, J. 1999. Animal and poultry gene pool. Animal Science Research Institute, Karaj-Iran. UNDP. 1998. The water buffalo: A gentle farm animal, Working in the Islamic Republic of Iran; FAO. Vale, W.G., Ribeiro, H.F.L., Rolim Filho, S.T., Sousa, J.S., Silva, A.O.A., Camelo, A.S.A.. 2006. The use of hormones ovulation synchronization in buffaloes in the breeding and off breeding seasons followed by a timed artificial insemination (TAI); Proceeding of the 5th Asian Buffalo Congress. P: 594597.
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