In recent years increasing interest for the application of sustainable animal production systems has been shown. A balanced relationship between environmental, sociocultural and economical factors is expected from their use. Regarding the environmental protection, the basic standards for organic livestock production are focussed against pollution and the reduction of nutrient loss. In relation ...

The trial was carried out in a commercial dairy unit at the municipality of San José de Las Lajas in the Central region of Havana province. The herd had 120 cows, 70% of them were registered as Holstein or Commercial Holstein and the rest were Siboney de Cuba crossbreds which were grazing star grass, guinea grass likoni or leucaena in 53 paddocks. The study was made to compare the effectivenes ...

Twenty six mares of the horse rearing centre Guacamaya, Pinar del Rio province were used, to assess the fertility of the fresh semen of donkeys in ODT 3-4-2. The mares were inseminated in August. Semen extraction was made using the method of artificial vagina Missouri model with the aid of a female mannequin. To each ejaculation the volume (ml), motility (%) and concentration were determined t ...

Inbreeding levels in the Cuban Criollo bovine cattle population and its effect on weaning weight were studied using a sample of 5 460 weaning weight (WW) records between 1989 and 2003 from the Cattlebreeding Enterprise "Manuel Fajardo", Granma province. Animals were the offspring of 52 sires and 1 883 dams distributed in 5 herds. Average inbreeding for the total population was of 1.16% of 4.2% ...

The main factors affecting the sustainability of cattle production farms were identified through the characterization of twelve dairy farms of the "Antonio Maceo" Credits ad Services Cooperative of the Cotorro municipality from the Havana City province. Data were obtained by direct field observations and surveys. The limiting factors identified were: reduced diversity of species and products, ...

Changes in the fertility indicators in three types of soils (lixiviated red ferrallitic, ferruginous nodular Gley and grayish brown) which are representative for livestock production were evaluated using two samplings one carried out in 1984 and the other in 2004. Throughout this period acidity increased by 0.6-0.9 units in all soils, organic matter (OM) content was reduced between 0.4 to 1.1 ...

Two experiments were carried out to assess the effect on yield and quality of the aerial biomass of applying different amounts of an Azotobacter chroococcum (strain MB9) dilution to the soil around the stump in a mulberry plantation used as cutting forage (Exp.1), as well as the application of the biopreparation to the foliage of this plant in equal l concentrations (Exp.2) when it was also co ...

Body and testicular development of Buffalypso males at 24 months of age in Cuba was studied using 130 animals from three (Western, Central and Eastern) regions of the country. The indicators were: body weight (BW), thoracic perimeter (TP), withers height (WH), body length (BL), croup height (CH), croup length (CL), pelvis width (PW), inter-ischiatic distance (ID) and scrotal circumference (SC) ...

The impact of copper (Cu) deficiency on the reproduction and efficacy of new biotechnologies is reviewed and some aspects of the action mechanism are identified. Hypocuprosis is the second most frequent mineral deficiency found in grazing ruminants in Cuba, affecting more than 30% of the cattle. Routine diagnosis in the animal is based on the predictive cupremia value in population studies, th ...

Early gestation diagnosis using estradiol benzoate was carried out to stimulate the sexual activity of crossbred Saanen x Criolla goats during the mating period. Once the diagnosis was made oestrus females were placed in direct contact with animals with more than 100 days of lambing to stimulate oestrus onset in these latter. Results demonstrate that 38 % of goats showed oestrus between 1 and ...