Performance of Regularly Cycling Repeater Dairy Cows on Mineral Mixture Supplementation

Abstract

The dairy cows in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu are reared with limited amount of dry fodder, green grass and wheat bran as concentrate sources. This affects the productive and reproductive performance of dairy cows. Hence an attempt was made to assess the deficit per cent of nutrient intake in comparison with NRC (2001) feeding standard, in eight regularly cycling repeater, Jersey cross (Jx) and Holstein Friesian cross (HFx) cows. The results revealed there was deficit /kg of dry matter intake (DMI) in Total digestible nutrient (TDN), crude protein (CP) and calcium (Ca) was The deficit /kg of dry matter intake (DMI) in Total digestible nutrient (TDN), crude protein (CP) and calcium (Ca) was 1.65 kg/day, 1134, 413 and 29 g/day, respectively and intake of phosphorus was excess by 0.64 g/day in Jx and in (HFx) cows the DMI,TDN, CP and Ca deficit were 1.26 kg/day, 865, 394 and 25 g/day, respectively and intake of phosphorus was excess by 13 g/day. Considering the low levels of calcium and excess phosphorous intake of the animals when compared to NRC (2001), supplementation of commercially available mineral mixture at the rate of 50 g per cow per day was done from day of insemination till the days of confirmation of pregnancy (90 days). Even though there was deficiency of other nutrients in this experiment, the trial was planned with mineral mixture alone to ascertain whether feeding mineral mixture alone will be sufficient to mitigate the repeat breeding problems. The result of the study concluded that repeater problem can be nullified to 75 % in Jx cows and 87% in HFx cows on supplementation of mineral mixture at the rate of 50 gm/day from the day of insemination to 90 days.