AAB Archives Animal Breeding AAB Arch. Anim. Breed. 2363-9822 FBN Dummerstorf Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/aab-45-23-2002 Bestimmung des Körpergewichtes mit Hilfe des Brustumfanges beim Fleckviehjungrind Willeke H. 1 Dürsch T. 1 FHW Triesdorf, 91746 Weidenbach-Triesdorf, Germany 10 10 2002 45 1 23 28 Copyright: © 2002 H. Willeke 2002 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://aab.copernicus.org/articles/45/23/2002/aab-45-23-2002.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://aab.copernicus.org/articles/45/23/2002/aab-45-23-2002.pdf

Title of the paper: <b>Prediction of the body weight of Simmental heifers using heart girth measurements</b><br> The decision of the date of the first insemination of heifers is mainly based on the weight. In most of the dairy farm no scale exists, therefore a trial had been started to estimate a regression equation for the prediction of the body weight by the heart girth measurement. <br><br> On seven farms the weight, heart girth and hip height of 324 heifers had been collected. The age of the heifers had been between 8 and 26 months. Additionally the results of heart girth and weight of 347 heifers out of 8 farms had been included. <br><br> The analysis of the farm influence, adjusted by age, showed high significant effects in hip height, heart girth and weight. Heifers, grown up on farms with higher milk yield, had a larger size. For predicting the body weight of Simmental heifers using the heart girth measurement (BU) the following equation had been analyzed: <i>Ŷ<sub>GEW</sub></i> = 137.6&ndash;2.647 &ast; <i>X<sub>BU</sub></i> + 0.024 &ast; <i>X<sub>BU</sub></i><sup>2</sup>. The R2-value is 0.94.