Effect of Mineral Mixture and concentrate feed on onset of Puberty in cross bred cow heifers

Poor reproductive performance is serious limitation in exploiting the potential of cows in India. Cows are generally fed poor quality forages and imbalance mineral and concentrate mixture resulting in late maturity thereby causing economical losses to the farmers. Keeping in view present study was planned to observe the effect of mineral mixture and concentrate feed on onset of puberty of cross bred cow heifers. Eighteen cross bred cow heifers (10±1 months old) were divided into three groups (6 heifers in each) A, B and C. Group A  animals were reared traditionally as farmers practice, the animals were not given the mineral mixture, Urea molasses brick and balance ration. They were reared on dry fodder, seasonal green fodder and 0.5 kg concentrate (wheat/barley) per day, no deworming and served as control. Group B animals were first dewormed with anthelmintic drug, 3g bolus of Albendazole and daily offered 30 grams of mineral mixture and 1.5 kg concentrate mixture. The composition of concentrate mixture is on the basis of recommendation of National Research Council (NRC). Group C animals were also dewormed and fed with 30 grams of Urea Molasses brick and 1.5 kg Guaras concentrate feed per day. Data regarding onset of puberty was taken by observing estrous symptoms and further confirmed through rectal palpation. Asignificant effect of the mineral mixture and concentrate supplementation was noted on age at puberty. Heifers in group “A” reached to thepuberty at 22 ±0.76 months and animals in group “B” attained the same stage at 18±0.23 months while animals in group C attained the same stage at 19±0.66 months. Type of feedingstrategy of group B showed significant effect (P<0.01) on age at puberty over feeding strategy of group A and C. It appears from the results of this study that farmers could save tremendous time andresources by feeding mineral mixture and balance concentrate to young growing stock for better animal production.