Inclusão da raça Aberdeen Angus no cruzamento rotativo alternado das raças Charolês e Nelore – fase de cria

Abstract

Brazil stands out today in the beef cattle scenario, in addition to having the largest commercial herd in the world, it is also the main exporter of beef. However, these indicators continue to rise, motivating the investigation of alternatives to optimize and maximize production, without having a large territorial expansion. One of the techniques that we can use for this purpose is the crossing between different breeds, because with this we manage to reconcile characteristics that optimize animal performance. The present study aims to analyze the effect of the inclusion of the Angus breed in a herd of animals from the alternating rotational crossing between Charolais and Nellore. The work was carried out at the Laboratory of Beef Cattle at the Federal University of Santa Maria, male and female calves from the alternating rotational cross between Charolais and Nellore, and from the industrial cross, in which cows from the alternating rotational cross were inseminated with Angus. The treatments were divided according to the genetic group of the calves, and were respectively: Charolais predominance (PCH), whose mothers have Nelore predominance, calves with Nelore predominance (PNE), whose mothers have Charolais predominance, calves with ½ blood angus with predominantly Charolais dam (AACH) and ½ blood Angus calves with predominantly Nelore dam (AANE). The experimental design used was completely randomized, with a variable number of repetitions per treatment and the collected data tested for normality, being subsequently submitted to analysis of variance by the F test and the means compared by the Tukey test at a 5% probability level. . Differences were found between some productive characteristics of calves, such as average daily gain after weaning, and weight adjusted at 205 days of age, in which calves from industrial crossing had higher values than calves from alternate rotational crossing. The degree of heterozygosity has a significant influence on the productive characteristics of calves after weaning.