Determination of Herd Management Level By Some Reproduction and Milk Yield Traits of Simmental Cows At Intensive Conditions in Turkey

Abstract

The aims of this study were to determine some fertility and milk yield traits of Simmental cows under intensive dairy farm conditions in Konya region of Turkey, and to investigate herd management level by these traits. A total of 120 cows constituting the material of the study were grouped by parity (second and third) and calving season (winter, spring, summer and autumn). Two milk yield groups were designed by taking arithmetic average of previous lactation milk yield. The means for number of services per conception (NSC) and service period (SP) were found to be 2.37 +/- 0.016 and 92.0 +/- 5.32 days, respectively. Also, average daily milk yield (ADMY), and first and second lactation milk yields were determined as 18.7 +/- 0.36 kg, 4756 +/- 59.41 kg and 5918.7 +/- 75.30 kg, respectively. While ADMY values in cows with 3th parity were higher than those with 2nd parity (P<0.01), NSC of cows calved in the spring were found to be lower (2.11 +/- 0.15) than those calved in summer (2.90 +/- 0.26) (P<0.05). In addition, the SP of cows calved in winter, autumn and spring was found higher than those calved in the summer ( P<0.01). The ADMY values cows of calved in the autumn were higher than those calved in the winter and spring (P<0.001) and NSC means were found lower (2.11 +/- 0.14) in cows with lower milk yield than those with higher yield (2.79 +/- 0.19) in the subsequent insemination period (P<0.01). These results indicate that milk yield was adequate, NSC was high and SP was close to the upper threshold. Finally, it is suggested that herd management indicators should exhaustively be reconsidered by fertility in the investigated dairy farm.