Vol. 7, Issue 11 (2018)

Author(s):
Kapil Dev and Ravinder Dahiya

Abstract:
The success of dairy industry largely depends on the level of production and reproduction performance of the animals and in dairy cattle, milk yield is considered as the most important trait. Crossbreeding programmes has significantly enhanced milk production in India. For maintaining high level of milk production productivity of crossbreed cattle and their further improvement, it is necessary to execute proper programme of genetic evaluation of males and females for selection of animals of high genetic merit. Therefore, including production efficiency traits along with production traits in sire evaluation would enable genetic improvement in production potential along with improvement in fertility traits. The non-genetic factors (e.g. environmental) have an important bearing on these traits and directly obscure recognition of genetic potential. Moreover, the performance records of an animal should be corrected for classifiable non-genetic sources of variation, which is essential for obtaining precise estimates of genetic parameters. The literature pertinent to genetic and phenotypic parameters of various production performance traits up to fifth lactation viz. lactation milk yield (LMY), lactation milk yield-305 (LMY-305), lactation length (LL), peak yield (PY), average daily milk yield (AMY), milk yield per day of calving interval (MCI), milk yield per day of age at second calving (MSC), persistency, age at first calving(AFC), service period (SP), calving interval (CI) and dry period (DP) were reviewed in crossbred cattle. In order to improve performance of dairy animals, it is necessary to develop an understanding of the factors affecting various production performance traits.