ACTORS AFFECTING BIRTH WEIGHT IN NILI-RAVI BUFFALO CALVES

Abstract

The study was based on birth weight of 2756 buffalo calves born during 1978-1994 at six dairy farms. The mean birth weight of the calves was 33.63 ± 0.13 kg. The male calves (35.98±0.17 kg.) were significantly heavier than female (30.45±0,14 kg.) calves (P‹ 0.001). Higher birth weight was observed in male and female calves born to early maturing buffaloes as compared to late maturing group. It was observed that birth weight of male calves increased non-significantly, whereas, birth weight of female calves increased significantly (P<0.001) with the increase in parity. The repeatability estimates of birth weight for male and female calves ranged from 0.36 ±0.19 to 0.85±0.02 at different farms. Age at first calving in dams was found to have non-significant negative correlation with birth weight of calves.