Adaptive Selection Tasks in Cattle Breeding in Yakutia

Abstract

The article summarizes the results of the authors’ scientific works and their own research on the adaptation of Yakut cattle and their crossbreeds with the Simmental breed to specific climatic and economic conditions of keeping. The paper highlights outstanding fat content (5.5…5.58%), excellent compensatory growth energy with free summer feeding (700…900 g per day), high coefficient of digestion of coarse feed fiber (74%), Yakut cattle’s unique resistance and adaptation to adverse weather, economic conditions of breeding, the degree of their inheritance in crossbreed livestock. The article presents materials for studying the morphobiological composition of blood, thermoregulation, skin and hair cover, development of internal organs, gas-energy metabolism, digestibility and use of feed nutrients. It is indicated that when crossing Yakut cattle with Simmental breed with an increase in genetic generation of crossbreeds, its valuable economic and adaptive qualities disappear. The task of protecting the gene pool of local native Yakut cattle and increasing its livestock and geographic range, improving nutrition concerns not so much its higher productivity, but the preservation of the valuable nutritional qualities of its dairy and meat products as well as of its adaptive potential to local conditions in the offspring. When local Simmental (87% of the population) and Kholmogorsky (12% of the population) cattle breeds are kept with generally accepted methods of artificial selection aimed at increasing productivity and improving hereditary qualities, it is necessary to simultaneously conduct adaptive selection by preserving the valuable qualities of the Yakut cattle gene pool in the offspring.