THE EFFICIENCY OF USING THE BODY CONDITION INDEX FOR IMPROVING MANAGEMENT IN DAIRY FARMS

Stelian SERTU¹, Vlad BER²
UNIVERSITY OF AGRONOMIC SCIENCES AND VETERINARY MEDICINE OF BUCHAREST¹
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE FOR BOVINE BALOTESTI, BUCHAREST²
Cor­re­spond­ing author email: sertu_stelian @ yahoo.com
Abstract: The present work was car­ried out for the eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy of dairy cow farms by using the body con­di­tion index. The body con­di­tion index is a sub­jec­tive indi­ca­tor that eval­u­ates the sub­cu­ta­neous fat deposits of dairy cows. For its inter­pre­ta­tion, a scale from 1 to 5 with frag­men­ta­tion from 0.5 points to 0.5 points is used. With the help of this indi­ca­tor, the main­te­nance con­di­tion of the cows is mon­i­tored and the fod­der ration is made more effi­cient so that there are no cachec­tic or obese ani­mals in the herd. The present research was car­ried out at the Research and Devel­op­ment Insti­tute for the Breed­ing Cat­tle of Balotesti, on a herd of 72, cows of the Roman­ian Black Spot­ed breed. This work was car­ried out to cor­rect the pro­duc­tion and repro­duc­tion defi­cien­cies with the help of the main­te­nance con­di­tion of the cows. The body con­di­tion index was report­ed both to the repro­duc­tive indi­ca­tors: the num­ber of IA/G, ser­vice-peri­od and the calv­ing inter­val, as well as to the pro­duc­tion indi­ca­tors: milk pro­duc­tion on the con­trol day and milk production/lactation. From the ana­lyzed data, it was found that by using this indi­ca­tor, the eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy of the farm increased by improv­ing the pro­duc­tion and repro­duc­tion per­for­mances.
Key­words: body con­di­tion score, cow, index pro­duc­tion and repro­duc­tion
Clasi­fi­ca­tion: JEL: Q01,Q18