Estimation of external appearance of the Ayrshire cows and other dairy cattle breed of Kirovskaya region

Abstract

A linear estimation of the external appearance of cows of dairy cattle breed in farms of Kirovskaya region was carried out. Obtained results of the linear estimation of first-calf heifers show that with increasing category of cows their productivity increases, and the difference in milk yield between animals with an estimate "satisfactory" and "excellent" amounted to 1911 kg. It is revealed that the external appearance of the animals of the Ayrshire breed differ significantly from the first-calf heifers of the black-motley and Holstein breeds. They are inferior to the daughters of the bulls of these breeds in such characteristics as the height and depth of the body (5.07 and 5.52 compared to 6.35 and 6.77, 7.95 and 7.16 respectively). The Ayrshire animals have almost the same estimate as the Holstein first-calf heifers according to the dairy type, the difference between them is only 0.5 points. The daughters of bulls of Canadian breeding stand out among the Ayrshire cows: they are tall, deep, stretched, dairy, with a flat, well-inclined rib, a dry light head, a beautiful udder, so they look like the descendants of Holstein bulls. It is found that the scale of estimation developed and tested on animals of Holstein breed, generally underestimates the majority of characteristics of the external appearance of small breeds. In this connection, it becomes necessary to introduce correction factors for the Ayrshire and Russian indigenous breeds.