Preliminary results on use of the open nucleus breeding scheme for improving milk production of egyptian buffalo

Abstract EN

The objectives of this paper were to investigate simultaneously the effect of Combinations of population size (z), nucleus size (p) and fraction of nucleus dams born in base (x) on expected genetic gain of the open nucleus breeding scheme (ONBS).

The impact of using artificial insemination on enhancing genetic gain was also studied.

Simulation technique was used to generate a population of buffaloes with one milk record for each buffalo.

The average of milk yield assumed was 1763 kg.

A total number of 848 records of 676 buffalo cows were used to estimate parameters used to simulate populations of different sizes (10, 25 and 50 thousand).

Genetic gain per generation (G) and annual genetic gain (G / Y) were calculated according to James (1977).

G ranged from 139 to 186 kg of milk and G / Y ranged from 24.1 to 32.1 kg of Milk / year.

The highest gain was obtained when the population size was 25000 cows, out of which the best 0.05 formulated the nucleus and the fraction of nucleus dams transferred from the base was 0.50.

Using artificial insemination (AI) enhanced the expected genetic gain which was much higher than that obtained using natural insemination.

G ranged from 172 to 277 kg of milk and the annual genetic gain ranged from 30 to 48 kg of milk.