Factors affecting the productive herd life, longevity and lifetime calf production traits in Frieswal cattle

The present investigation was undertaken on 953 Frieswal cows maintained at military dairy farm Meerut over 16 years (1985-2000) to determine the effect of genetic and non-genetic factors on productive herd life, longevity and life time calf production traits. The study revealed that averages of productive herd life (PHL), longevity, total calves born, total normal calves born, total female calves born and selective value were 375 +/- 0.09, 6.20 +/- 0.09 years, 2.91 +/- 0.07, 2.57 +/- 0.06, 1.23 +/- 0.04 and 0.92 +/- 0.04 respectively. The selective value of 0.92 indicated that each Frieswal cow did not replace herself in the herd. The period of birth, first lactation milk yield (FLMY) and sire of cow have highly significant effect on all the above traits, whereas age at first calving (AFC) had only significant effect on PHL and total calves born.