Nader Drbas*(1) and Mohammed Ayman Daba(2)
(1). Shatha Research Station, Agriculturual Research Center in Al Ghab, General commission for Scientoific Agricultural Research (GCSAR), Al Ghab, Syria.
(2). Animal Breeding Research Department, Animal Wealth Research Administration, GCSAR, Damascus, Syria.
(*Corresponding author: Eng. Nader Drbas. E-Mail: n.drbas@gmail.com).
Received: 05/07/ 2015 Accepted: 21/08/ 2015
Abstract
The study was conducted at the Shatha Buffalo Research Station in Hama/Syria during 2011, to determine the effect of some factors affecting birth weight, weaning, and growth rate of born buffalo such as the father, season of birth and month of birth, sex and year of study.
The available station records were used for this purpose from 1997 up to 2008. The results showed a significant effect (p ≤ 0.01) for each of the year, season of birth, the father, and month of birth on birth weight, it was noticed that males were heavier than females at birth with a significant effect (p≤ 0.05), and weaning weight of 90 days influenced significantly (p≤ 0.01) by the year and month of birth, also the effects of father and sex were significant (p≤ 0.05), but no effect in terms of the number of the season. Considering the growth rate during breastfeeding period the impacts of year, father, and month of birth were significant (p≤ 0.01), also and the impact of sex was significant (p≤0.05), but no effect of the season number. The genetic heritability was estimated by the variance components of the parents, which was for birth weight 0.360 ± 0.03, and was for weaning weight 0.406 ± 0.06, while it was for growth rate 0.390 ± 0.02, this shows that there are several factors affect birth weight, and weaning, and growth rate in the Syrian calves buffalo during breastfeeding, therefore it is necessary to focus on improving the environment where the animal is besides the genetic improvement in breeding programs to get the required genetic gain.
Keywords: Buffalo, Birth weight, Weaning weight, Rate of daily growth, Heritability.
Full paper in Arabic:تأثير بعض العوامل الوراثية وغير الوراثية على وزن الميلاد والفطام في مواليد الجاموس السوري