Reproductive ability and milk productivity of mares of different genealogical lines of Argaleisky type of Transbaikal breed

Abstract

Productive herd horse breeding in Transbaikal region is one of the traditional branches of animal husbandry. The problem of preserving and improving local (aboriginal) horse breeds in our country is extremely important for their eff ective economic use and maintaining the diversity of the original gene pool of farm animals. Therefore, line breeding is an important aspect of horse breeding. The purpose of the research was to study the reproductive ability and milk productivity of mares of diff erent lines of Argaley type of Transbaikal breed. Research was carried out at the APC “Plemzavod imeni Kalinina” in the Aginsky district of the Trans-Baikal Territory. The objects of the study were mares of Transbaikal breed of Argaley type of diff erent genealogical lines origin, the age of the mares was 8–9 years after 4–5 foalings. The conformation and constitutional features and live weight of mares depending on their genealogical lines origin have been presented in the article. The average fertility performance rate for mares of different lines was 93,7 %, with foaling being 98,8 %. The greatest live weight was in mares belonging to the line Argali. It exceeded the indicators of herdmates from the lines Premier, Chetkiy and Kagor by 20,0; 15,0, 10,0 kg, respectively. During 5 months of lactation, mares of the line Argali produced 1854,0 kg of milk with an average daily milk yield of 12,36 kg. Mares of the line Argali over 5 months of lactation were superior to herdmates of other lines in terms of milk yield by 459,0; 336,0 and 223,5 kg and average daily milk yield by 3,06, 2,24 and 1,49 kg, respectively. It has been established that the physicochemical composition and environmental safety of milk from mares of the different lines of Argaley type of Transbaikal breed indicate its fairly high nutritional value.