Number and performance indices of brown cattle breeds in Russia

Abstract

The research goal is to study the population dynamics of the main brown cattle breeds, their quantitative and qualitative production indices. It was found that the numbers of brown cows decreased in all categories of farms in the country except those of the Caucasian brown breed which increased by 140 heads from 2020 through 2022. The decrease of Brown Swiss cow population turned out to be significant - by 2,200 heads, and the Kostroma breed - by 780 heads. More significant increase cow population in breeding facilities was observed only in the North Caucasian Federal District, namely in the organizations of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. Of 5,100 cows of the Kostroma breed that were available in 2020 on farms of all categories in the country, in 2022 there were 4,320 heads left, and only on the breeding farms their number increased by 40 heads. The analysis of changes of milk yield of Brown Swiss cows from 2020 through 2022 shows that in the country as a whole it decreased on farms of all categories by an average of 130 kg, on breeding farms - by 58 kg, while on nucleus breeding farms it increased by 213 kg. The cows of the Smolensk type of the Brown Swiss breed decreased their performance indices annually and over the whole analyzed period they decreased milk yield indices by 253 kg, butterfat indices - by 0.07 absolute percent, and protein - by 0.03 absolute percent. Low milk yields were obtained from cows of the Dagestan Mountain breed (about 2.0 thousand tons) and Caucasian brown breed (about 2.6-2.8 thousand tons). In comparison with Brown Swiss cows, the milk yield of the Kostroma breed in all categories of farms in the country was higher by 254 kg in 2020, in 2021 - by 711 kg, and in 2022 - by 583 kg.