RESEARCH REGARDING THE DYNAMIC OF SOME REPRODUCTION INDICES FOR GREY STEPPE BREED

Ingrid Aspazia Gruber, I. Gîlcă, A. Gruber

Abstract
   The goal of this paper is to underline the evolution of breeding indices for Grey Steppe breed, based on the fact that this breed is on the verge of extinction. The biological material was represented by a number of 48 specimens of Grey Steppe breed from three locations (SC Boviselect SRL, Neamt, SC Modern Farm SRL, Cluj-Napoca and SCDCB - Dancu, Iaşi). The breeding indices were calculated based on the breeding records of the specialized units for cattle breeding and were statistically interpreted with the help of the program Microsoft Excel from the Microsoft Office package and finally the variation estimators (arithmetic average, the average standard deviation and the variation coefficient) for the analyzed parameters were established. The average values for the gestation period fell within the recommended interval according to the literature (278 - 290 days) for all three farms. The average duration for service- period exceeds the recommended interval by far (45 - 75 days), resulting 373 days for the second lactation and 310 days for the seventh lactation as the cattle had more time to recover between the two calving. The period between the two calving has exceeded 365 days since the duration of service-period was longer, coming up to average means of over 500 days. The age at the first calving had the average value above the recommended one of 24 months in the literature, due to breeding at greater ages of the specimens from Grey Steppe breed.

Key words: Grey Steppe, breeding indices, bovines