Animals (Sep 2023)
The Association between Charolais Cows’ Age at First Calving, Parity, Breeding Seasonality, and Calf Growing Performance
Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of cows’ calving ages and newborn calf body weight on the pre-weaning growth rates of calves under the farming conditions of a northeastern European country. The females were purebred Charolais cows that calved between 2019 and 2022. A total of 130 calves (bulls = 76; heifers = 54) were observed during the evaluation. The investigation showed that, based on gender, bulls had a 4.28% higher birth weight than heifers (p p p p p p p p < 0.05).
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