STUDY THE AGE OF WEANNING ON WEIGHT DEVELOPMENT OF BULGARIAN SIMENTAL BREED

Petar Stoikov, Verginia Gaydarska, Tsvetanka Harizanova, Tatyana Ivanova, Radostina Stoikova

Abstract: The objective of the study was to determinate the impact of weaning age on weight development, growth and feed for 1 kg gain (growth) in calves from the Bulgarian Simmental breed, fattened to 700 kg live weight. Two groups with 12 calves in each were formed. Calves from group I were weaned at the age of 3 months, while those from group II were sucking from their mothers until 7 months of age. It was found that the intensity of growth of the animals was significantly higher in calves sucking to 7 months of age and they have achieved significantly higher average daily gain with 18.81%, (P<0.01) compared to the control group which has realized an average daily gain of 1139 g. for 90-day period. As a result of weaning, which usually causes stress, calves from the second group decreased rate of weight development, but at 12 months of age the average live mass was with 12.44% higher (448.62 against 399.00), compared to the analogues from the first group, weaned at 3 months of age and the differences for live weight and daily gain were significant (P<0.05 and P<0.01). All data were statistically processed.

Keywords: age of weaning; average daily gain; Bulgarian Simmental breed; calves; difference weight; sucking

Date published: 2023-03-01