Tz. PEEVA and P. PENCHEV
Agricultural Institute, BG-9700 Shumen, Bulgaria
PEEVA, Tz. and P. PENCHEV, 2003. Effect of some factors on the milk productivity of the buffaloes of the Bulgarian Murrah breed. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 9: 547–551
Subject of the present study were 545 buffalo cows of the Bulgarian Murrah breed with 775 normal (210–305 days) lactations, raised on two farms. The study involves information for the interval 1990–2002. To estimate the effect of certain sources of variance on the milk production traits and the length of lactation was used a linear model with the following fixed factors: line (i = 1...5), season of calving (j = 1...4), age at first calving (k = 1...7), farm (l = 1...2), lactation (m = 1...5) and period of raising (q = 1...4). The mean LS estimates for milk yield (kg), fat content (%), butter fat (kg), lactation period (days) are 1748.1, 7.39, 128.8 and 281.4 respectively. Substantial and highly significant effect on the studied traits – except for the fat percentage – is played by the factor farm. The effect of the period of raising of the buffaloes on all the traits is considerable, too. Major is the influence of the number of the lactation on the milk yield and butter fat but minor on its length. The effect of the season of calving is statistically proved for milk yield (P < 0.01) and butter fat (P < 0.05); the lactation length is not effected by that factor. Minor and lowly significant effect on the milk yield and butter fat (P < 0.05) is played by the genealogical line. The age at first calving does not influence the studied traits.