Dietary Dicalcium Phosphate Supplementation Enhances Productive and Reproductive Performances of Crossbred and Local Dairy Cows

ABSTRACT: This study was carried out to investigate the productive and reproductive performances following oral supplementation of dicalcium phosphate (DCP) in different crossbred and local dairy cows. A total of 64 dairy cows of different genetics were selected for the study. All the cows were divided into four different groups and each group consists of 16 cows, namely Local (L), Local ×Holstein Friesian (L×HF), Local × Sindhi (L×S) and Local×Sahiwal (L×SA). Each group of dairy cows were again subdivided into two subgroups like control and DCP supplement group. We assessed the productive performances such as milk production and lactation length, as well as reproductive performances such as service per conception, post-partum heat period and calving intervals among different breeds of cows as well as in the matching DCP supplement group. The productive performance among the different groups of cows i.e. L×HF, L×S, L×SA and Local cows were found significantly (p<0.01) different. Interestingly, DCP supplement group showed a significant increase of productive performances compared with the control group. Likewise, reproductive performance such as service per conception in different crossbred and Local cows also decreased significantly (p<0.01) with DCP supplement group than the control. Contrarily, the post-partum heat period and calving intervals in different crossbred and Local cows were slightly lower in the DCP supplemented group than control that did not differ significantly. Therefore, the study reveals that L×HF crossbred were found to be better performer followed by L×SA, L×S and Local cows, and DCP supplementation improve all the parameters studied irrespective of genetic variation.

Keywords: Dicalcium-phosphate, reproduction, dairy cows, reproductive performances.