Body Growth Measurements of Rural Buffalo Heifers’ Between Two and Half to Three Years Age

摘要

Study of3969 observations generated on body growth measurements of2421 growing buffalo heifers between 31 to 36 months of age (mean age 33.30+0.02 months) belonging to 2190 farmers spread in 566 villages of 10 regions of Uttar Pradesh state revealed mean body length, height at withers, chest girth and estimated body weight as 51.58±6.58,51.07±0.08, 71.48±0.10 inches and 401.52±81.54 kg, respectively. It was noticed that heifers from Faizabad region showed widest chest girth (73.61±0.25 inches) and were heavier in body weight (417.20±3.18kg) and heifers from Lucknow region exhibited longer body length (54.57±0.33 inches) followed by those from Meerut region (52.70±0.49 inches) compared to those from other regions studied. The effect of regionand sire was highly significant on the traits studied. The age significantly affected chest girth, body iveight but did not affected body length and height at wither. Effect of season of birth although showed significant effect on height at ivither andbody length (P<0.05) the observation needed further confirmation on larger set of data, its effect on chest girth and body weight was not found of much importance. Based on the results obtained, it was concluded that in view of region and sire wise variations in body measures from field level data need to be considered before they are used for monitoring growth of female buffalo calves betiueen 31 to 36 months of age.