Productivity of Breeding Cows in Integrated Cattle-Oil Palm Plantation Under Different Mating Systems

Abstract

Integrating cattle breeding stocks with oil palm plantation (OPP) has been widely practiced in Indonesia. To optimizing the productivity of cows under extensive system, breeding management becomes one of success key. Seasonal breeding system allows the cows to calving in the relatively same period and minimizing calf mortality rate. This study was aimed to compare the productivity of the weaning calves under different mating systems, which is seasonal mating (SMS) and non-seasonal mating (NSMS) systems. Data were obtained from oil palm plantation cattle integrated system in Central Kalimantan (403 Bali x 1792 Brahman cross (BX) in SMS) and (335 Bali x 1858 BX in NSMS). We analyzed the calf crop, calf mortality, weaning weight and cow’s productivity between different breeds and mating systems. We observed that calf crop of Bali and BX in SMS were 41.94% and 61.50% while in NSMS were 31.34 % and 41.77%, respectively. Under SMS, calf mortality was 8.65% and 8.40 %; while under NSMS were 20.45% and 12.42% for Bali and BX, respectively. Average weaning weight (WW) of Bali and BX were 131.60 and 177.13kg; and 125.79 and 171.88 kg under SMS and NSMS respectively. Cow productivity index (CPI) of Bali and BX were 55.19 and 108.93 (under SMS) and 39.43 and 71.79 (under NSMS). In their respective breeding system, both breeds of cows performed better under seasonal mating system.