FACTORS AFFECTING BIRTH WEIGHT IN NILI-RAVI BUFFALO CALVES
Arif-un-Nisa Naqvi and S.A. Shami1
Animal Sciences Institute, National Agricultural
Research Centre, Islamabad; 1Department of Biological
Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Abstract
The study was based on birth weight of 2756
buffalo calves born during 1978-1994 at six dairy farms. The mean birth
weight of the calves was 33.63 ± 0.13 kg. The male calves (35.98±0.17 kg.)
were significantly heavier than female (30.45 ±0.14 kg.) calves (P<0.00l).
Higher birth weight was observed in male and female calves born to early
maturing buffaloes as compared to late maturing group. It was observed that
birth weight of male calves increased non-significantly, whereas, birth
weight of female calves increased significantly (P<0.001) with the increase
in parity. The repeatability estimates of birth weight for male and female
calves ranged from 0.36±0. 19 to 0.85 ±0.02 at different farms. Age at first
calving in dams was found to have non-significant negative correlation with
birth weight of calves.