Economic evaluation of crossbreeding for dairy production in a pasture based production system in Kenya

• Published in: Livestock production science 2000-07, Vol.65 (1), p.167-184
• Main Authors: Kahi, A.K., Thorpe, W., Nitter, G., Van Arendonk, J.A.M., Gall, C.F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal Breeding and Genetics; Animal Breeding and Genomics; Crossbreeding; Dairy cattle; Economic evaluation; Fokkerij en Genetica; Fokkerij en Genomica; Leerstoelgroep Fokkerij en genetica; Lifetime profit; Tropics; WIAS
• ISSN: 0301-6226; 1872-6070
• DOI: 10.1016/S0301-6226(99)00154-2

Data on accumulated life performance of crosses of Ayrshire (A), Brown Swiss (B), Friesian (F) and Sahiwal (S) cattle collected over a 21-year period from a dairy ranch in the lowland tropics of Kenya were analysed to estimate additive and non-additive genetic effects on economic traits. These were used to predict and compare, first, performance of cows under nine crossbreeding strategies and, second, the performance of the production systems when applying the strategies that included maintaining the purebred S dams and bulls required for the production of crossbreds. Performance was predicted from parameters of a genetic model based on additive-dominance and additive×additive interaction effects for the following strategies: first cross (F×S), two-breed rotation (AS) Rot, three-breed rotation (BFS) Rot and two- (F and S), three- (B, F and S) and four- (A, B, F and S) breed synthetic ( Syn) breeds based on equal and unequal contributions of the foundation breeds. The sensitivity of predicted performance at the cow level to variation in economic parameters was also investigated. For profit per day of productive herdlife (PLD), the B and F additive breed effects were not significantly different from that of A. The additive breed effect for S was negative and significant ( P