Indian Journal of Animal Sciences 91 (12): 1085–1088, December 2021/Article

https://doi.org/10.56093/ijans.v91i12.119832

Test day yield, lactation curve and production potential of Gir cattle under hot
and humid conditions of Tamil Nadu
VENKATARAMANAN1, S MEENAKSHI SUNDARAM2, VRINDA B AMBIKE3, T MUTHURAMALINGAM4
and M MANOBHAVAN2

Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600 007 India

Received: 5 August 2021; Accepted: 20 September 2021

ABSTRACT
Test day milk yield records (5130), milk production and milk composition traits from 19 lactations of Gir cows
collected for two years (2019 and 2020) were used to understand the performance of Gir breed in hot and humid
conditions of Tamil Nadu. Different lactation curve models were used for modelling test day records and model
diagnostics like adjusted R-square, BIC and RMSE were used to obtain the model of best fit. The mean test day
yield, fat per cent, SNF (%), total milk yield, peak yield, days to attain peak yield and calving interval observed
were 5.78 kg, 5.05%, 7.65%, 1507 kg, 9.23 kg, 46.5 days and 447 days respectively. Ali and Shaeffer model
offered the best fit for lactation curve in Gir cows. Mahadevan method and Gamma function were used to calculate
the persistency of milk yield which was obtained as 1.33 and 6.348 respectively. Results of the study indicated that
Gir cattle were able to adapt themselves through maintenance of reproductive traits comparable with that of the
native tract but the new humid environment has caused a slight decrease in the performance of milk production
traits.

Keywords: Gir, Hot and humid, Lactation curve models, Test day yield

Gir cattle is one of the most important milch breeds of management, days in milk and day of the year (Jamrozik
India known for its heat tolerance and disease resistance in and Schaeffer 1997). Lactation curves facilitate
India as well as other tropical countries (Araújo et al. 2018) visualization of milk yield against days from calving and
like Brazil where it has been used in the development of thus help in understanding the peak yield and persistency
several other milch breeds (Daltro et al. 2021). In Tamil of the lactation. Moreover, test-day models also help in
Nadu, all the recognized breeds are of draught utility and prediction of milk yield of a breed under unique conditions.
majority of the milch animals that farmers maintain are Hence, this study was undertaken to understand the
crossbred animals with exotic inheritance. However, small performance of Gir cattle under the hot and humid
farmers with fewer resources are unable to maintain the conditions of Tamil Nadu.
crossbreds, which leads to poor production, reproduction Data comprising of 5130 test day records from 19
and loss due to mortality and thus it is beneficial to upgrade lactations of 10 Gir cows maintained at Livestock Farm
with high yielding indigenous breeds. The compact size Complex of Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences
and heat tolerance of the Gir cattle makes it suitable for University (LFC, TANUVAS), Chennai was utilized for this
such conditions. However, it is important to understand the study. The cows were purchased from the native tract of
production potential of the breed under various agro- Gujarat during November 2018 and data was collected for
climatic conditions prevailing in the state for successful two years during the period from January 2019 to December
use of the breed as purebred or for upgrading of non-descript 2020. Along with test day yield, information on the
cattle. Recording 305-day yield can be a tedious process production, reproduction, persistency and milk composition
and so use of test day (TD) records is gaining popularity as were also studied.
the data is adjusted for stage of lactation and TD models The LFC, TANUVAS is located in Chennai district of
account for environmental variations on each test day like Tamil Nadu, India with co-ordinates 13.15°N 80.24°E and
features a tropical hot and humid climate for most of the
year. The animals were managed under intensive system of
Present address: 1Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences
University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. 2Livestock Farm Complex, management with green fodder (20 kg/day), paddy straw
Madhavaram Milk Colony, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. 3Madras (1–2 kg/day) and concentrate (1.0 kg for maintenance and
Veterinary College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Corresponding author additional 400 g per liter of milk produced) feeding.
email: drsundha22@gmail.com Total lactation yield (kg), peak yield (kg), days at peak

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yield (days), 180-day yield (kg), 305-day yield (kg), test day (as covariate) was used for the test day yield which
lactation length (days), dry period (days) and calving corrected for the correlation between measurements from
interval (days) were analyzed for the effect of season of the same animal. The models used for test day yield,
calving (Equation 1). For test day yield (TDY), season of production and reproduction traits and milk composition
recording was taken as fixed effect, days from calving were traits could be represented as:
taken as a covariate ranging from 1 to 396 and animal as
Yijkl = Ei + Ij + Mk + eijkl (1)
the random effect. Milk composition traits like fat yield
(%), SNF (%) and total solids (%) were analyzed to where Yijkl, Test day yield; Ei, fixed effect of ith season (i=1
understand the effect of season of calving and stage of to 3); Ij, effect of days from calving as a covariate (j= 1 to
lactation. Seasons were formed by grouping the months of 396); Mk, random effect of kth cow (k=1 to 10), NID (0,
milk collection as winter (January, February, November and σ2b); eijkl, random residual associated with each observation,
December), summer (March to June) and monsoon (July NID (0, σ2e).
to October). Stage of lactation was taken as a fixed factor
Yijkl = Ei + Ij + Mk + eijkl (2)
which was obtained by dividing the lactation length into
three parts and animal was taken as a random effect where Yijkl, milk production, reproduction or composition
(Equation 2). traits; Ei, fixed effect of ith season of calving (i=1 to 3); Ij,
Persistency of milk yield was calculated using the fixed effect of jth stage of lactation for milk composition
Mahadeven method and gamma function (Tekerli et al. traits (j= 1 to 3); Mk, random effect of kth cow (k=1 to 10),
2001) NID (0, σ2b); eijkl, random residual associated with each
Descriptive and exploratory analyses were done for all observation, NID (0, σ2e).
the economic traits studied using R software (R core team, Various lactation curve models were fitted to understand
2020). General linear model (GLM) analysis was done for the trajectory of milk yield against days in milk for Gir
the effect of fixed factors and Tukey post-hoc test was used cows (Biswal et al. 2017).
to compare the pair-wise means. Packages used were lme4, The models were then ranked based on their adjusted
emmeans, psych, agricolae and ggplot2. A repeatability R 2 , Root mean square error (RMSE) and Bayesian
model with animal as random effect along with season and Information Criterion (BIC). Friedman’s test was used to

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and effect of season and stage of lactation for milk production, reproduction and composition traits

Trait TDY Fat SNF TS TLY PY Days at 180-day 305-day LL DP CI

(kg) (%) (%) (%) (kg) (kg) PY yield yield (days) (days) (days)

N 5130 140 140 140 19 19 19 20 19 19 13 13

Min 0.30 1.32 0.79 5.80 447.00 7.00 6.00 447.00 447.00 142.00 79.00 269.00
Max 11.80 11.40 10.00 18.37 2098.00 11.80 147.00 1415.00 2043.00 396.00 282.00 617.00
Mean 5.78 5.05 7.65 12.70 1507.00 9.23 46.50 1070.00 1450.00 279.00 160.77 447.00
SE 0.03 0.12 0.13 0.22 119.12 0.39 9.09 57.19 106.01 17.59 16.93 28.44
SD 2.07 1.47 1.53 2.59 519.25 1.69 39.64 255.76 462.08 76.67 61.04 102.55
CV 0.36 0.29 0.20 0.20 0.34 0.18 0.85 0.24 0.32 0.27 0.38 0.23

Effect of season on milk production and composition traits

** * *
Summer 6.82± 5.18± 7.50± 12.60± 1387± 9.26± 24.70± 1156.00± 1378± 250.00± 166.00± 355.00±
0.05a 0.45 0.24 0.65 201 0.73 15.40 93.70 180 32.40 46.50 69.90
Rainy 4.98± 4.25± 7.23± 11.30± 1026± 8.00± 39.00± 808.00± 1012± 236.00± 136.00± 404.00±
0.04b 0.75 0.39 1.06 224 0.82 18.90 114.80 202 36.30 46.50 69.90
Winter 5.59± 5.40± 8.38± 14.00± 1759± 9.70± 62.60± 1123.00± 1660± 311.00± 165.00± 477.00±
0.05c 1.07 0.60 1.55 142 0.52 11.90 72.60 128 22.90 21.90 33.00

Effect of stage of lactation on milk composition traits

Early – 5.36± 7.88± 13.50± – – – – – – – –
0.56 0.41 0.90
Mid – 4.97± 8.02± 13.00± – – – – – – – –
0.50 0.33 0.75
Late – 4.50± 7.21± 11.50± – – – – – – – –
0.59 0.44 0.95

Where TDY, Test day yield; SNF, Solid non-fat; TS, Total solids; TLY, Total lactation yield; ADY, Average daily yield; PY, Peak
yield; LL, Lactation length; DP, Dry period; CI, Calving interval; SD, Standard deviation; CV, Coefficient of variation. *indicates
P<0.05 level of significance and **indicates P<0.01 level of significance. a,b,cindicate the superscripts obtained from Tukey test.

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check whether the models were statistically different based comparable to other studies.
on the ranks obtained through the different model The lower lactation length could be due to the better
diagnostics. The models of best fit were identified based performance with respect to reproduction as caused by early
on their mean ranks and then best six models along with pregnancy in the subsequent parity. This finding is also
the actual yield were plotted as graph and 305-day milk supported by the values of calving interval, which was
yield was predicted. Persistency of lactation was also comparable to values recorded in the native tract (Gadariya
calculated. et al. 2017). Thus the Gir cattle are able to adapt themselves
Results of descriptive analysis and effect of season and through maintenance of reproductive traits comparable with
stage of lactation on milk production, reproduction and that of the native tract but the new humid environment has
composition traits have been summarized in Table 1. The caused a slight decrease in the performance of milk
average TDY was similar to that obtained by Dora et al. production traits which could be increased through
(2020) for Gir cattle maintained at Chattisgarh but lower selection.
than Bangar and Verma (2017) and Gadariya et al. (2017) In the present study, season and stage of lactation did
which could be a result of increased humidity as native not influence the milk composition traits while earlier
tract (Gujrat) has hot and arid climate. Gir cattle maintained studies (Gajbhiye et al. 2019) reported significant effect of
at Brazil (Araujo et al. 2018, Pereira et al. 2019) were found season and stage of lactation on milk constituent traits.
to have higher average TDY which could be due to the Uniform plane of nutrition in the intensive management
intense selection practiced in the country for improvement system followed in the farm could be the probable reason
of milk yield. Season of recording significantly affected for absence of differences between season and stage of
the TDY with higher yield during the summer season as lactation. Significantly positive correlation (P<0.01) of 0.59
Gir animals are well adapted to the hot summer months. (fat-SNF), 0.91 (fat-TS) and 0.87 (SNF-TS) was observed
Fat, SNF and TS content of milk observed for Gir cattle in which agreed with the results obtained by Dora et al. (2020).
the present study were in accordance with the results Among the various models used to study the lactation
obtained by Araújo et al. (2018), Gajbhiye et al. (2019) curve, Ali and Schaeffer model was the best fitting model
and Dora et al. (2020). whereas Wilmink’s models did not provide a good fit (Table
Total lactation yield, 305-day yield and the lactation 2). RMSE (Root mean square error) values were lower and
length observed in the present study were lower as similar for all the models except Inverse quadratic
compared to other studies (Gaur et al. 2003, Savaliya et al. polynomial model. Friedman’s test gave non-significant
2016, Gadariya et al. 2017) from the native tract. Peak yield results which showed that ranks obtained from all the model
and days to attain peak yield observed in this study were in diagnostic criteria were similar. Best six models based on
accordance with Patbandha et al. (2020) who reported that their mean rank obtained through BIC, adjusted R2 and
peak yield was attained in 6–8 weeks after calving. Gaur et RMSE were Ali and Schaeffer model, Parabolic exponential
al. (2003) and Savaliya et al. (2016) reported a lower value model, Inverse quadratic polynomial modified model,
for dry period but the value of calving interval was similar Quadratic cum log model, Mixed log model and Gamma-
to the present study whereas Gadariya et al. (2017) reported type function have been plotted in Fig. 1. The predicted
a higher calving interval. The milk composition traits were 305-day yields from these models were 1845.935, 1633.173,
not affected by the climatic conditions and the results were 1540.196, 1719.196, 1711.945 and 1620.361 respectively.
Gamma-type function was given as the best fitting model
adjudged in earlier studies by Bangar and Verma (2017)
and Savaliya et al. (2017).
Persistency calculated using Mahadevan method was
1.33±0.08 which was comparable to other studies done for
HF crossbred cattle in India (Sharma et al. 2018) and using
Gamma function was 6.348 which was similar with the
study done on Gir crossbreds (Bangar and Verma 2017).
The production parameters of Gir cattle were slightly
lower than other studies conducted in the native tract of the
breed in India. Milk composition and reproduction
parameters such as calving interval were comparable with
that of the results observed in the native tract. Thus, the Gir
cattle are able to adapt themselves through maintenance of
reproductive traits comparable with that of the native tract
but the new humid environment has caused a slight decrease
in the performance of milk production traits. Ali and
Schaeffer model can be used for predicting the milk yield
Fig. 1. Various lactation curve models along with the actual of Gir cattle reared in hot and humid conditions of Tamil
yield. Nadu.

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Table 2. Lactation curve models

Model name Adjusted R-Square BIC RMSE Mean rank

Ali and Schaeffer model 0.449 20275 1.570 4.333

Parabolic exponential model 0.427 4768 0.375 4.667
Inverse quadratic polynomial modified model 0.255 –4773 0.155 5.000
Quadratic cum log model 0.448 20275 1.571 5.000
Mixed log model 0.448 20267 1.571 5.333
Gamma function 0.421 4826 0.377 6.000
Exponential decline function 0.391 5086 0.386 7.000
Cubic model 0.443 20323 1.578 7.000
Quadratic Model 0.441 20338 1.582 8.000
Wilkmink model (k=0.05) 0.433 20416 1.593 9.000
Inverse quadratic polynomial 0.588 54780 38.226 9.667
Wilkmink model (k=0.065) 0.433 20419 1.594 9.667
Wilkmink model (k=0.1) 0.432 20425 1.595 11.000
Wilkmink model (k=0.61) 0.431 20433 1.596 12.000

Where BIC, Bayesian information criterion; RMSE, Root mean square error.

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of India-characteristics and present status. Animal Genetic
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LFC, TANUVAS for the study. parameters for a test day model with random regressions for
yield traits of first lactation Holsteins. Journal of Dairy Science
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