COMPARISON BETWEEN NON-LINEAR GROWTH MODELS TO DESCRIBE THE GROWTH CURVE IN EGYPTIAN BUFFALO AND CROSSBRED COW CALVES

Easa, Ahmed A.; Rashad, Amr M. A.

doi:10.21608/jaesj.2019.321725

COMPARISON BETWEEN NON-LINEAR GROWTH MODELS TO DESCRIBE THE GROWTH CURVE IN EGYPTIAN BUFFALO AND CROSSBRED COW CALVES

Document Type : Full research articles

Authors

Ahmed A. Easa ¹
Amr M. A. Rashad ²

¹ Animal and Poultry Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Damanhour University, 22511, Damanhour, Egypt

² Animal Production Department, Faculty of Agriculture (El-Shatby), Alexandria University, Aflaton Street, El-Shatby, 22545 Alexandria, Egypt

10.21608/jaesj.2019.321725

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the growth patterns and describe the most suitable growth curve models for buffalo calves and crossbred cow calves in Egypt. A total of 4500 normal records from 150 buffalo calves and 100 crossbred cow calves were examined. The data collected during the period from 2007 to 2010 in a research station which belonging to the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Alexandria, located approximately 10 km from Alexandria.
The study focused on various fattening performance traits, including Initial Weight, Final Weight, Total Gain, Fattening Period, Average Daily Gain, Feed Intake, and Feed Conversion. The results revealed that buffalo calves exhibited superior performance in terms of average daily gain (0.82 kg/d) and feed conversion (6.53 kg DM/kg gain) compared to crossbred cow calves (0.78 kg/d and 6.77 kg DM/kg gain, respectively).
Furthermore, the study determined that the quadratic and Von-Bertalanffy models were the most suitable for fitting the growth curves of both buffalo calves and crossbred cow calves in the study. These models provided the best fit for describing the growth patterns of the calves under investigation.

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