The Effect of Some Environmental Factors on Lactation Length, Milk Yield and Calving Intervals of Anatolian Buffaloes in Bartın Province of Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to determine the environmental factors effected to lactation length (LL), lactation milk yield (LMY), calving intervals (CI) of Anatolian buffaloes in Bartın. 1511 milk yield data belonging to 762 Anatolian buffaloes and 957 CI data belonging to 543 Anatolian buffaloes used in this study which has been reared different environmental conditions. The least minimum squares method was used for determining the effect of environmental factors, and a Tukey multiple comparison tests were used for comparison. LL, LMY, and CI mean and their standard deviations were 260.26±1.33 d, 1035.5±8.21 kg, and 426.35±2.91 d, respectively. Calving year, season, calving age, and lactation number’s effect on those parameters were investigated. The effect of calving year (P<0.001) and season (P<0.01) on LL; calving year (P<0.001) and calving age (P<0.05) on LMY; calving age and lactation number (P<0.001), calving age (P<0.01), season (P<0.05) on CI were found statistically significant. Meanwhile, a high positive phenotypic correlation was calculated between LMY and LL (r=0.66, P<0.001). There are no adequate studies related to the environmental factors influencing lactation length, lactation milk yield, calving intervals of Anatolian buffaloes. It was concluded that obtained data relevant to these environmental factors will contribute to increasing yield parameters at buffalo farms via using stud selections and breeding studies as well as related researches.