Duration of economic use and milk yield of the Red Steppe cows with respect to bloodlines in the improving breeds of the Russian selection

Abstract

Improving the genetic potential of the Red Steppe breed cows is one of the priority tasks facing the Russian animal breeders involved in the breeding of dairy cattle. In Russia, the breeds permitted for crossbreeding with the Red Steppe breed are the Red Danish, Angler, and Red-and-White Holstein breeds. The article analyzes the influence of different bloodline combinations for the approved breeds of the Russian selection on the duration of economic use and the growth of milk productivity of the Red Steppe cows. For this purpose, the indicators of milk yield, fat and protein content in milk during the entire period of economic use of the Red Steppe breed cows combined into 14 groups depending on the different blood combinations according to the approved improving breeds were studied. The absolute superiority of the Angler-bred cows to 50% and the Holstein-bred cows to 13–25% was revealed. These cows outperformed the representatives of other groups in terms of the duration of economic use by 701–1452 days, in terms of lifetime milk yield by 1.7–3.4 times, as well as in the yield of milk fat and protein, which were maximum in these animals, 1651 and 1379 kg respectively. A longer-term economic use of cows with a predominance of blood in the Angler breed (2.4–6.6 lactation) was established in comparison with the animals with a predominance of Holstein blood (2.3–3.9 lactation). The average daily milk yield for one day of economic use of the cows of all groups ranged from 21.8 to 25.9 kg. High-blooded Angler cows combined with low-blooded Holstein or Red Danish cows showed a desirable positive correlation between milk yield and protein content in milk (0.43–0.66).