Study to Assess the Effect of Breed, Season and Breed X Season Interaction on Maintenance Behaviour of Stud Bulls
Study to Assess the Effect of Breed, Season and Breed X Season
Abstract
Stud bulls plays a unique role in cattle breeding due to its high genetic potential. To maintain its characteristics, better health condition is necessary which can be achieved if it exhibitsits maintenance behavior normally. Hence, aim of the present study was to assess the effect of breed, season and breed x season interaction on the maintenance behavior (viz., amount of feed consumed, eating, drinking, rumination, standing, sitting, lying and sleeping time) of stud bulls. Twenty bulls (five from each four different breeds i.e. Sahiwal, Gir, Jersey cross and H. F. cross) at frozen semen bull station, Haringhata, Nadia, West Bengal, India during two seasons i.e., winter and summer were selected for the experiment. The result revealed that amount of feed consumed, eating, sitting, lying and sleeping time was significantly affected by breed at 5,5,1,1 and 1% level statistically. Season was found to have significant effect on rumination and sitting time at 5 and 1% level statistically whereas there was significant effect of breed x season interaction on lying (P<0.01) and sleeping time (P<0.01).All the effects were found to be non – significant on drinking and standing time. Hence, information based on the study might be helpful to adopt better management practices in the farm so that bulls maintain its behavioral activities normally and perform better in each season.
Key words: stud bull, maintenance behavior, season
