Current Status of Reproductive Management in Bali Cows in South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia

doi:10.4236/ojf.2013.34B002

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Open Journal of Forestry

2013. Vol.3, No.4B, 4-6

Published Online October 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojf) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojf.2013.34B002

Current Status of Reproductive Management in Bali Cows in

South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia

Sudirman Baco, Muhammad Yusuf, Basit Wello, Muhammd Hatta

Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Animal Science, Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Indonesia

Email: [email protected]

Received July 2013

The objective of this study was to elucidate the current status of reproductive management of Bali beef

cows in south Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. This study was conducted in Bantaeng Regency, South Su-

lawesi Province, Indonesia. Purposive sampling was used to choose the location where the study was tak-

ing place with consideration that this region has potential place for Bali cows. Data collection both pri-

mary and secondary data was done through observation and interview to obtain both quantitative and qua-

litative data. The results of this study showed that reproductive management applied to Bali cows in this

region was very low. However, knowledge of the farmers regarding reproductive management such as es-

trus and its signs were much better, although the time of insemination to the estrous cows sometimes was

too late. Mating system of Bali cows in this area were two different methods; natural mating and artificial

insemination (AI). To adopt AI technology, the farmers should follow the standard operation of this

technology. This study also showed that most of the farmers had good knowledge about estrus synchro-

nization; however, they are still having difficulty to obtain or to access this technology, especially the

price of the hormones used for estrus synchronization.

Keywords: Bali Cows; Reproductive Management; Estrus; Mating System

Introduction

Reproductive efficiency has long been recognized as the

most important aspect of commercial beef production (Dyer,

2009). For a cow-calf operation, good reproductive rates are

critical to operational success and profitability (Parish, 2010).

Furthermore he stated that cows that do not produce calves on

at least annual basis use resources that could be better used to

support more productive cattle. Therefore, closely monitor cat-

tle reproductive efficiency to identify and address reproduc-

tive problems quickly. This means that it is necessary to man-

age the reproductive cows to achieve high level of profitability.

However, to manage the reproductive rate of beef cattle, it is

important to assess or measure the reproductive efficiency of

the cattle as well as reproductive management that applied in

the herds.

In South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia, Bali cattle are the

type of beef cattle that are commonly raised by the farmers.

This type of beef cattle has many advantages in rising accord-

ing to the farmers’ perception in this region. For example, this

cattle has better reproductive performance, high tolerance to the

heat stress, and having dual purpose for draught and for beef.

These reasons make the farmers to maintain this type of cattle

with them. However, since this type of beef cattle used for

draught in the field, in which affecting their reproductive per-

formance to produce many offspring during their lifetime, for a

few last years their reproductive performance was decreased.

This is probably caused by low level of reproductive manage-

ment applied by the farmers. However, to our knowledge, there

was no study to describe the reproductive management of Bali

beef cows in this region. Therefore, this study tried to elucidate

the current status of reproductive management of Bali beef

cows in south Sulawesi Province, Indonesia.

Materials and Methods

Animals and Management

A total of 130 cows from 25 farmers in Bantaeng Regency,

South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia were involved the present

study. The Bali cows were raised in a small holder system

without any modern technology involved. The housing system

for the animals was in the simple house during nighttime and

free during daytime for grazing without any additional feeds

such as concentrate, mineral, and feed additive. The cows are

usually sent out in the morning time to the field for grazing and

return back in the late afternoon. During grazing, some owners

of Bali cows sometimes observe their animals for estrous signs.

Animal showed signs of estrus were naturally mated with the

bull if available at the time of estrus or inseminated by insemi-

nator.

Data Collection

For reproductive management and the development of Bali

cattle population, both primary and secondary data were used in

the study. Primary data was collected with the help of a ques-

tionnaire to the 25 farmers that included raising management

and reproductive management. While secondary data was col-

lected from related institution such as local government and

livestock service. Clinical examination was implemented by the

authors with the help of local technician and/or management

staffs of the herd. All cows were subjected to trans-rectal palpa-

tion for pregnancy status and/or the genitalia to assess uterine

conditions and ovarian structures. Trans-rectal palpation of the

S. BACO ET AL.

uterine was performed to determine the consistency of uterine

including contraction, elasticity, tonicity, symmetry of uterine

horns, and the presence of any fluid in the uterus (Gauta m et a l.,

2010). The presence of any palpable ovarian structures, ovarian

cysts was defined as one or more follicle-like structures >25

mm in diameter without a concurrent corpus luteum (CL). Ova-

ries without palpable structures (i.e. ovarian follicles > 10 mm

in diameter and/or a functional CL) were considered inactive

(Yusuf et al., 2010).

Results and Discussion

Reproductive Ma n a ge m ent of Bali Cows

In the present study, the farmers were interviewed regarding

the simple reproductive management applied for their Bali

cows, such as cow and heifer management, knowledge about

puberty, estrus and its signs, reproductive disorders, mating

system, estrous synchronization, and calving management. For

cow and heifer management, mostly farmers did not pay special

attention to how efficient their cattle will produce as many as

calves during her lifetime. One main problem facing the Bali

cows after calving was the duration of anestrus (Yusuf et al.,

2012a). Prolonged postpartum anestrus in suckled beef cows is

one of the main restrictions to obtain a calf every year (Miller

& Ungerfeld, 2008). Short et al. (1990), Stated that prolonged

suckling, nutritional deficiencie s, climatic stress, pa rity, time of

the year, and management practices were the main causes of

prolonged calving intervals. However, in many cases, the far-

mers did not realize this condition. Therefore, effort to reduce

this problem is necessary. The duration of anestrus in cattle was

usually shortened when cows exposed to bulls (Rekwot et al.,

2000; Landaeta-Hernández et al., 2004; Miller & Ungerfeld,

2008). Likewise, regular examination of postpartum cows in

order to achieve shortening the duration between calving and

first estrus seems to be one of solving the problems (Yusuf et

al., 2012a).

In heifers, there was no selection of replacement beef heifers

on genetic improvement and phenotype. Parish (2010) stated

that for cow and heifer management, it should be considered

indicators of reproductive performance when selecting re-

placements. In addition, it is important to have heifers cycling

before the first breeding season to ensure the highest possible

fertility at first service. The other thing that the farmers in this

region did not pay attention was the age of heifers at first

breeding and probability of heifers’ age at first calving.

In the present study, knowledge of the farmers regarding es-

trus and its signs was quite good. They knew both primary and

secondary estrus signs. When the signs of estrous occurred in

their cows, especially standing estrus, they had a good effort to

mate the cows with the bull or they inform to the inseminator to

inseminate their cows as soon as possible. However, in many

cases, it was often the time of insemination was too late. This

indicated when the authors asking the inseminator especially

uterine tone condition at the time of insemination was not in

contraction. This suggests that although the knowledge of the

farmers was much better about estrus signs but the time of in-

semination should also be improved.

For reproductive disorders, all farmers described no idea re-

garding this problem for their cows. Anestrus postpartum was

the main problem in this region. Long duration of postpartum

anestrus was t he major reproductive disorders facing their cows

(Yusuf et al., 2012b). In addition, there was no treatment con-

ducted for this problem. The authors tried to introduce repro-

ductive management for anestrus cows with the use of hormon-

al treatment to shorten the interval from calving to first service.

This was not accepted well since the farmers have difficulty to

buy such kind of hormones. For instant, introduction of GnRH

or progestin (CIDR) by authors for free to the farmers seemed

to be successful. However when authors stopped this program,

there was no more treatment conducted by the farmers for this

reproductive problem.

In the present study, we have tried to assess the reproductive

physiology of all the cows as shown in Table 1 (Yusuf et al.,

2012b).

Based on clinical examination of Bali cows as shown in Ta-

ble 1, it indicated that in a population of these cattle, there were

37% cows become pregnant after repeating insemination or

natural mating. The remaining 63% cows were not pregnant

with various reproductive statuses. For these high non-pregnant

cows required special attention to increase the number of cows

to become pregnant. This means that it is necessary to improve

reproductive management in Bali cows to achieve the highest

level of pregnancy rate as well as to shorten the calving interval

among the cows. Therefore, an effort to increase the reproduc-

tive efficiency in Bali cattle in this region is necessary in order

to increase both population and profitability to the farmers.

Table 1.

Results of clinical examination of Bali cows.

Variable No. of cows Percentage (%)

No. of animal 111 100

Pregnant cow 41 37

Non-pregnant 70 63

Cyclic 15 14

Cyclic + nimpomania 1 1

Cyclic + metritis 1 1

Anestrus 52 47

Anestrus + metritis 1 1

Future Prospect to Improve Reproductive

Management in Bali Cows

Since potential good reproductive performance of Bali cows

in this region occurred in the past time, it is not difficult to im-

prove this potential in the future. Improvement in reproductive

management as well as nutrition especially micro-nutrient would

be the way out to increase the population of Bali cattle through

improvement of reproductive performance by conducting good

reproductive management.

The present study concluded that the reproductive manage-

ment in Bali cows was very low. Farmers’ knowledge and li-

mitation to the skills to manage the cows were the major factors

for this problem. However, to improve the reproductive per-

formance of Bali cows, it is necessary to improve the farmers’

knowledge as well as skill in raising animals.

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