Environmental and genetic effects on weight, scrotal circumference and visual scores at weaning on Canchim beef cattle

The effects of calving year and season, property, sex of the calf, feeding regime, age of calf and age of dam at calving, maternal and direct additive effects of Charolais breed, and maternal heterosis effects among Charolais and zebu breeds were evaluated by the method of least squares on economical importance traits such as weight, scrotal circumference and visual scores for slaughter conformation, navel score and hair coat at weaning of the Canchim breed. Data from 12,334 Canchim calves born from 1999 to 2005 were used. Calving year and season, property, feeding regime and age of dam (linear and quadratic) had significant effects on all the studied characteristics. There were effects of sex on weaning weight and navel score; of age of the calf on weight, scrotal circumference and slaughter conformation and hair coat scores; and of proportion of Charolais on the calf and on the dam on weaning weight, and on scores of slaughter conformation and hair coat; and of maternal heterozygose on weight, scrotal circumference, slaughter conformation and navel scores. Additive direct effects of the Charolais as deviation of zebu were negative on weight, slaughter conformation and hair coat score at weaning, while the maternal additive effects were positive. Maternal heterotic effects were positive on weight, scrotal circumference, slaughter conformation and navel scores. In general, these sources of variation have to be taken into account on estimates of genetic parameters and on genetic evaluations of Canchim animals for the studied characteristics.