The Effect of Nutritional Status on Reproductive Performance of Urban Dairy Farm Systems in Debre Zeit
| dc.contributor.advisor | Dr. Alemayehu Lemma | |
| dc.contributor.author | Haileselassie, Zewoldi | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-06-17T10:19:04Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-30T12:40:01Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-06-17T10:19:04Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-30T12:40:01Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2008-06 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The relationship between nutrition and reproduction is a topic of increasing importance. Many research reports have clearly demonstrated that energy, protein and minerals intake is the most important nutritional factors affecting reproduction in dairy cows. This is particularly evident in the tropics where feed is often inadequate. A study was conducted to determine the effect of nutritional status on reproductive performance in urban dairy farms around Debre Zeit from November 2007 to May 2008. A total of 212 lactating cows in 16 farms of different sizes have been monitored over the study period. The study was conducted based on farm sizes, body condition score, milk yield and milk urea nitrogen levels as indicators of nutritional status and calving interval, service perconception and days open as a measure of reproductive performance. The most common feed resource comprised crop-residues and agro-industrial byproducts such as wheat bran, straw, noug and linseed cake, and local brewery byproduct and rarely hay. The mean body condition score was 2.6 and out of the total sample, 49.5% had a poor body condition. Most (72.4%) of the animals with poor body condition were known to be coming from large farms. The overall mean (±SD) calving interval, days open and service perconception were in the order of 468.31±109.63 days; 162.50 ±111.06 days; and 2.33 ±1.75, respectively while the conception rate was 62.5%. Calving interval and days open were only slightly affected by body condition and milk urea nitrogen concentration while service perconception was significantly affected (P<0.05) by both body condition and milk urea nitrogen concentration. High milk producing cows were found to have a relatively longer calving interval and days open and higher number of services perconception compared to the low milk producing ones (P<0.05). High milk urea nitrogen concentration was highly correlated with low milk production and vice versa. The currently prevailing feeding system and nutritional status did affect the performance of the cows. Apart from this poor heat detection as well as poor AI service were also major contributors to poor reproductive performance of the cows. It is therefore perceived that improvement of diets, proper feeding strategy, and determination of milk urea nitrogen at herd level could help monitoring the nutritional status of the cows and will help to timely correction before it affects reproductive performance. Key words. Urban dairy cows, Reproductive performance, Body condition, MU | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/21670 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.subject | nutrition | en_US |
| dc.subject | reproduction | en_US |
| dc.title | The Effect of Nutritional Status on Reproductive Performance of Urban Dairy Farm Systems in Debre Zeit | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |