Postpartum productivity of Simmental-Ongole crossed cows of the first generation compared to Ongole crossed cows kept by farmers

Abstract

Many farmers, currently, prefer to keep crossbred cows between Simmental and
Peranakan Ongole (PO) which called SimPO because of a large body size. Up to now there have not been much information available related to the cows productivity. The study was conducted to see the first generation of SimPO cow productivities compared to that of PO cows kept by the farmers. Seventeen SimPO cows and nineteen PO cows, at the second parity, aged about five years and seven mo pregnancy, at Bambanglipuro, Bantul District, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, were used in this study. The observation of the study include the calving score, calf vigor score at birth, calf performances (birth weight, average daily gain and four mo old weight), the cow weight change since calving until four mo after it, and cow reproductive performances (post partum estrus, service per conception, and days open). The results showed that there was no difference between the SimPO and PO cows on calving score (1 vs. 1) and calf vigor score (1 vs. 1). However, the SimPO calf birth weight (37.47 ± 5.03 vs. 32.17 ± 4.08 kg), the 4 month olds weight (153.97 ± 25.28 vs. 109.15 ± 19.93 kg) and the average daily gain up to 4 mo old (1.04 ± 0.30 vs. 0.72 ± 0.15 kg/h/d) were significantly (P<0.01) higher compared with PO calves. Although the SimPO cow weight loss was greater (-0.63 ± 0.31 vs. -0.35 ± 0.21 kg/h/d) (P<0.01), there was no difference between the two breeds in terms of cow reproductive performances (post-partum estrus, service per conception, and days open). It can be concluded that the productivity of SimPO cows at the first generation was better than the PO cows in terms of calf performances, while in terms of their reproductive performances
there was no different.