Reproduction in Domestic Animals - Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias

16 t h International Congress on Animal Reproduction
218 Poster Abstracts
southwest of China. Gayal has a calving behavior that the cows are
out of the herd lonely when calving. The special calving behavior has
not been covered so far. The objective of this study was, through the
investigation of calving behavior of to collect relevant information on
ethology, which, hopefully, would benefit in protecting the herds in
immigration and feeding management whenever making the most of
gayal scientifically. The study was carried out on the Mithun
conservation farm of Phenix mountain at Lushui county in Yunnan
province (98°59′--99°03′E, 25°58′--26°04′N, an altitude of 2700--
3200m)from June 1 st to 21 st , 2007, by observing three gayal cows
being about to delivery(two of multiparous, one of primiparous,
average age of 9.0±5.6) and one adult bull(age of 3.5 years old) under
free grazing on two hectare fenced improved pasture consisting of
Dactylis glomerata, Trifolium repense and free grazing on the sward
of native grasses with the same management. Average temperature
and relative humidity recorded during the experiment were
16.85±1.01 and 74.27±4.54%, respectively to an elevation of
2420m. Relative behavior was recorded with digital vidicon and
camera on Day 3 before the parturition, and monitored gayal cow with
full track at daylight and at every 2h interval for 30 min at night. The
results were shown that gayal behaved out a series of preparative
behavior before the delivery, namely calving behavior were expressed
as: 60% cows would leave the herd to look for food and proper
delivering place alone from 10 to 3 days before calving, preventing
milk sucking from the previous calves with more watchful walking
from 24 to 12hours before calving. Impatience and mounting behavior
(including mounting on gayal bull) of the cows were observed from 8
to 1 hour before calving. In a few hours before calving, Gayal cows
performed strongly the behavior of signory, rudely chasing the other
animals. Rather flat sward on the higher place with lower gradient
was naturally selected by cows as parturition site, where the tall grass
in 4~6m 2 was cleaned up by the cows to provide a convenient and
safe parturition area for calves. Calving was from 7 o’clock in the
morning to 6 o’clock in the afternoon, tending towards a sort of
daylight delivering system. Activity of calving took 63.33±101.16min
after chasing other animal and lying on the ground for calving,
25.00±5.00min. From calf born to placenta expelled, it took
11.74±10.89h. The number of getting up and lying down of cows
were 7.00±6.00 times during the delivery course. Average birthweight
was 17.83±1.04kg for male and female without any dystocia case.
Activity time of new calf: From birth to the first standing, it took
52.70±29.69min; from the first standing to the first milk sucking,
38.7±29.14min and from the first milk sucking to walking around,
61.33±1.53 min. The study indicated that calving performance of
gayal was orderly processed with hardly undystocia case, good
maternity, better ability of rearing calf, and the best capability of
reproduction and survival in the wild condition.
Keywords System of Semi-intensive management; Mithun(Bos
frontalis); calving behavior; investigation.
P577
Treatment of postpartum dairy cows ‘not-detected in
oestrus’ with gonadotrophin releasing hormone,
prostaglandin and progesterone
McDougall, S
Animal Health Centre, New Zealand
Oestradiol benzoate (ODB) has been extensively used in synchrony
programmes in dairy cattle to manage follicle wave emergence and
timing of oestrus. However, ODB has recently been banned by the
European Union and hence removed from other markets. Thus
alternate protocols to synchronise cows are required. The objective of
this study was to assess the efficacy of 3 treatments of dairy cows ‘not
detected in oestrus’ before the start of seasonal breeding programme
(PSM). The ovaries of 2222 cows not detected in oestrus by 9 days
before the PSM were examined using ultrasonography and randomly
assigned to be treated with: 1. Gonadotrophin releasing hormone
(GnRH), prostaglandin F2a and GnRH at 7 and 2-day intervals,
respectively; with fixed time artificial insemination 1 day after the
second GnRH treatment (‘GPG’ programme), 2. ‘GPG’ and insertion
of an intravaginal progesterone-releasing device between the first
GnRH injection and the PG, with fixed time artificial insemination 1
day after the second GnRH treatmen (GPG + P4) , 3. As for 2, but
with oestrus detection for 3 days after the PG treatment, and with the
second GnRH treatment occurring only where oestrus has not been
detected by 3 days after PG (GPG + P4 + heat), or 4. No treatment
(Control). Pregnancy status was assessed using ultrasonography at
35 days after the PSM. Data were analysed using logistic regression
models which included treatment group, age, herd, CL status
(presence or absence) and days from calving to the PSM. Estimated
marginal means (95% CI) were calculated and the multiple
comparisons among treatment groups accounted for by using the
Bonferroni adjustment. The conception rate to service within the first
7 days was higher in the treatment groups which included
progesterone than in the control or GPG groups (0.43 (0.36-0.50),
0.56 (0.49-0.63), 0.48 (0.41-0.55), 0.34 (0.23-0.44) for the GPG,
GPG+P4, GPG+P4+heat and Control groups, respectively; p = 0.48,
0.001, and 0.04 compared to the Control group). Additionally, the
pregnancy rate (i.e. total number of cows confirmed pregnant/total
number of cows treated) varied among groups (0.40 (0.34-0.47), 0.54
(0.47-0.60), 0.46 (0.40-0.54), 0.08 (0.05-0.11) for the GPG, GPG+P4,
GPG+P4+heat and Control groups, respectively. The control was
lower than all other groups (p