Evalution of Productive, Reproductive, Longevity and Lifetime Traits of Camel in Egypt

Abstract

Data used in the present study were collected from history sheets of milk records (420) of 112 Maghrebi she-camels, number of dams were 55 sired by 15 sire, located at Center of Studies and Development of Camel production. Marsa Matrouh governorate belonging to Animal Production Research Institute (APRI), Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Egypt. Data were covered the period from 2003 to 2017 year. Data were analyzed using the General Linear Model (PROC GLM) Procedure of the statistical analysis system (SAS, 2009). The model includes, season, year of calving as fixed effects, age at calving, days open and first milk yield as random effects. Age at first calving (AFC), days open (DO), calving interval (CI1), number of services per conception (NS/C1), total milk yield (TMY1) lactation period (LP1), number of lactation completed (NOL), culling age (CULL), productive life (PL), total lactation length (TLL), lifetime production (LMY), milk yield per lactation length (MPLL) and milk yield per day of productive life (MPPL) averaged 62.72 month, 168.30 days, 587.37 days, 2.17 services, 1408.76 kg, 410.15 days, 3.98 parity, 3861.80 days, 1940.63 days, 1389.74 days, 5266.02 kg, 4.08 kg and 3.03 kg, respectively. Age at first calving, total milk yield, days open, number of services per conception, number of lactation completed, culling age, length of productive life, lifetime production and milk yield per day of productive life were not affected by season of calving. Meanwhile, calving interval, total lactation length and milk yield per lactation length. Except for lactation period was highly significant (p<0.01). In addition, she-camels calving in Autumn and Winter had higher AFC, Spring and Summer are higher DO1, Autumn and Summer had longest CI1. Summer and Autumn had higher NS/C1 and Spring and Winter calving had higher TMY1 and LP1. Meanwhile, she-camels calving in Spring and Summer are higher NOL, CULL and PL. While, Autumn and Spring calving had longest TLL, Summer and Spring calving had higher LMY, Autumn and Winter calving had higher MPLL and Autumn and Summer calving had higher MPPL. Year of calving had significant effect (p<0.05) on AFC, CI1 and CULL. While, non-significant effect on DO1, NS/C1, TMY1, LP1, NOL, PL, LMY and MPPL. While, highly significant (p<0.01) effect on TLL and MPLL. Age at calving had non-significant effect on DO1, NS/C1, TMY1, NOL, CULL, PL, TLL, LMY and MPLL. While, significant effect (p<0.05) on LP1and MPPL. While, only highly significant effect (p<0.0001) on CI1. Days open had non-significant effect on AFC, NS/C1, TMY1, NOL, CULL, PL, TLL, LMY, MPLL. Also, milk yield increased linearly with the increase of DO. While, LP1 and CI1 affected highly significantly by days open and only significant effect (p<0.05) on MPPL. First milk yield had highly significant effect (p<0.01) on TMY1, NOL, CULL, PL, TLL and MPPL. Also, first milk yield increased linearly with advanced in age. While, had non-significant effect on both of LP1,AFC, DO1, CI1 and NS/C1. While, had significant effect (p<0.05) on LMY and MPLL. It was concluded that an improvement in camel productive and reproductive traits is possible both through improving management systems and utilization of controlled breeding programs.