VARIABILITY OF THE BODY DEVELOPMENT TRAITS OF SIMMMENTAL COWS IN SERBIA

Abstract

Assessment of cows' exterior is important because of the assessment of the capability of animals to guarantee, through their overall exterior appearance as well as the appearance of certain parts of the body, not only their good health but also long production life (longevity). The main goal of measuring of domestic animals is to determine the body dimensions, to compare animals of the same or different species, to understand the numerous physiological and biochemical processes that occur in the animal organism. Only by measuring, the accurate and reliable data on the general physical development of the animal and the harmony of its structure are obtained. In the present study, most of the physical measures were taken on total of 954 animals. The average height of the cow of the Simmental breed was 141.95 cm, the length of the pelvis was 51.44 cm, the width of the pelvis was 50.45 cm and the body depth was 78.84 cm. By analyzing the impact of the unified factor of the rearing system and origin, its very significant influence (p <0.001) was determined on all four properties of body development