Factors Related to Weight Gain of Dairy Calves

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Abstract
Growth data on 659 dairy calves were used to determine the effects of breed, sex, season of birth, inbreeding, ration, and birth weight on weight gains of dairy calves to 8 wk, six months, and 1 yr of age. Breed, sex, degree of inbreeding, and ration were significant sources of variation. Effects of season of birth were significant in analysis of weight gains to 1 yr. Correlations of birth weight with weight gains were all less than .40. Early rate of gain had little or no effect on later gains, age at calving, and milk production. Although calf nutrition experiments should be designed to prevent confounding breed, sex, and inbreeding effects with ration effects, a portion of these effects can be removed by using birth weight as the independent variable in an analysis of covariance.