Efect of sunflower seed vegetable fats upon the reproduction of cows
2008
Girginov, D. | Todorov, N.
An experiment with two groups of 22 cows each from the Bulgarian Brown cattle breed was performed by the factorial method. The experiment began by the 30th day after the calving and ended by the 160th day of the lactation - a total duration of 130 days. During the experiment the cows of group I control, instead of fat-rich feed, received 1.9 kg of ground barley plus 0.27 kg of sunflower oil meal and the ration of the cows from group II was supplemented with 1.7 kg of whole sunflower seed. The basic ration consisted of 20 kg of maize silage, 3 kg of hay, and 1.8 kg of sunflower oil meal to achieve a protein-balanced diet. The aim of the experiment was to evaluate the effect of the diet with sunflower seed on the fertility rates in cows. All the cows included in the trial were fertilized. However, the percentage of the cows fertilized from the first insemination tended to be lower for the control animals than for those which had received sunflower seed and more vegetable fats. During the subsequent inseminations, the fertility rate was significantly better in the cows fed on fat-rich diets. The relatively low number of studied cows and the lack of echographic evaluation of the ovarian status did not allow drawing any categorical conclusions. The observed tendency towards an improvement of the fertility rates of cows after supplementation of their diet with whole sunflower seed, rich in fats and especially in linoleic acid, necessitates more detailed investigations.
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