Estimation of Means and Trends in Economic Traits of Sahiwal

The performance records of Sahiwal cattle maintained under ICAR funded All India Coordinated Research Project on Cattle (Data Recording Unit-DRU) pertaining from 2011–2015 were utilized to estimate means and trends in important economic traits. It was found that the overall average of age at frst calving, frst lactation milk yield, frst lactation length, frst peak yield, frst dry period, frst service period, frst calving interval, wet average and herd average were 1360.12 ±34.13 days, 1531.23±56.88 kg, 288.55±19.41 days, 8.36±1.19 kg, 151.55±19.46 days, 143.57±11.63 days, 439.52±14.18 days, 5.49±0.47 kg and 3.62±0.15 kg respectively. The analysis further revealed that the rate of change/year (trend) in the traits were-40.58 days in age at frst calving, 41.38 kg in frst lactation milk yield, 2.67 days in frst lactation length, 0.71 kg in frst peak yield, 1.70 days in frst dry period, 0.80 days frst service period, 10.84 days in calving interval, 0.09 kg in wet average and 0.06 kg in herd average from 2011 to 2015. The study of trends indicated that there has been considerable reduction in the age at puberty and increase in frst lactation milk yield, lactation length, peak yield, wet average and herd average. It may be concluded that improvement in the traits has been realized by breeding and management interventions namely: comfortable housing, balanced feeding, timely inseminations, use of quality semen from bulls with higher breeding worth and better husbandry practices.