The aim of this thesis is to assess the effect of crossbreeding on performance of purebred Simmental and Holstein-Friesian dairy cows in comparison with crossbred dairy cows in Slovenia. Numerous different studies report about positive effects of crossbreeding different dairy cattle breeds on production traits, health, longevity and economy of dairy cattle breeding. The analysis included 382.829 standard lactations from 157.339 Holstein-Friesian, Simmental and crossbred cows between the mentioned two breeds, which calved in the years from 2010 to 2018. All animals were divided into five different classes, according to percentage of Holstein-Friesian breed. The impacts of breed, parity, year and season of calving represent the systematic part and the impact of duration of lactation represent the random part of the statistic model. We found out that increasing the proportion of Holstein-Friesian breed also increased milk, fat and protein yield in standard lactation, but decreases the content of fat and protein in milk. Cows in the first standard lactation had the lowest, and cows in the third standard lactation had the highest milk, fat and protein yield in 305 days. The impact of season of calving had a statistically significant effect on milk, fat and protein yield, beside the impacts of breed and parity. By all breed groups, we found an increasing of milk yield in standard lactation through the investigated period. The phenotypic correlations between milk, fat and protein yield within separate breed groups, were statistically significant (p<0.0001).
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