Reproductive potential of red chittagong cattle in Bangkadesh

The study was carried out to investigate the phenotypic and genetic potential of
reproductive traits of Red Chittagong Cattle (RCC) of Bangladesh. For that purpose
accumulated data on a total of 101 animals from four different herds covering a period from
2005 to 2011 were used for analyses. The overall mean (±SE) values of age at first heat
(AFH), age at first conception (AFC), age at first calving (AC), calving rate per productive
year (CR), interval to post partum heat (IPPH), days open (DO), calving interval (CI) and
generation interval (GI) were 35.9±1.1 month, 42.1±1.3 month, 50.6±1.1 month, 0.87±0.01
month, 149.4±9.5 days, 178.6±11.0 days, 454.9±10.4 days and 4.2±0.1 year, respectively.
The factors having significant effects on reproductive traits were herd on DO and CI and
calving year on DO. Calving parity and calving season had no significant effect on those
traits. The heritability estimates of IPPH, DO and CI were very low (0, 0.06 and 0.09) and
that of corresponding repeatability estimates were also low (0.06, 0.08 and 0.09,
respectively). The heritability estimates for other traits were moderate (0.39 to 0.50). The
results indicated that though reproductive potential of RCC for most of the traits are below
than expected, that may be due to their lower inherent capability of indigenous Zebu
compared to Taurus, but there is still opportunity of considerable improvement of these traits
studied as indicated by their phenotypic variations among population.