PHENOTYPIC CORRELATION BETWEEN COUPLE OF MILK PRODUCTION TRAITS IN ROMANIAN SPOTTED BREED DAIRY HEIFERS FROM S.C. AGROSEM S.A. PIŞCHIA, TIMIŞ COUNTY

Abstract

The aim of the study was to establish the phenotypic correlations between milk yield parameters of 95 Romanian Spotted breed dairy heifers and their subsequent milk yield and composition in the first lactation. Correlation coefficients among estimated milk, fat and protein yields were high and almost the same. Between milk and fat yield there was a positive and very high correlation (r = 0.9873***). Also the correlation coefficient (r = 0.9719***) registered for the couple of traits milk and protein yield was high, while between fat and protein yield the correlation coefficient had a value of 0.9568***. The strong positive correlations among couple of traits show that these can be improved in the dairy heifers, using selection by independent culling levels.

Keywords

• dairy heifers
• correlations
• milk
• fat
• protein