Determination of the Body Condition Score and Its Relationship with Milk Yield in Turkish Holstein Cows
2016
GALİÇ, Aşkın
It is quite important to keep the condition of cows under surveillance due to conduct of nutritional programs in dairy herds as well as genetic relations with other traits. This study was conducted to estimate the heritability of body condition score (BCS) and genetic correlation with milk yield of Holstein cows. Also, the effects of herd, lactation period and calving age on BCS were investigated. For this aim, body conditions of 1001 cows were scored using the scale of 1-9. The average BCS was determined as 5.52±0.04 and its average was ranged from 4.54 to 6.58 at different periods of lactation. Results showed that body conditions were affected by the lactation period significantly (P<0.01), while the effects of herd and calving age on it were not statistically significant. Heritability estimate of BCS was 0.20±0.16 while the genetic correlation of BCS with milk yield was moderately negative (-0.41±0.17) indicating that high-producing cows tend to be leaner. Although with high standard errors, these results indicates that BCS is heritable at low-moderate level and can result in a progress in both traits by defining an appropriate index.
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