effect of genetic group, season, their interaction, temperature, humidity and temperature-humidity index on maintenance behavior of stud bulls

Iranian journal of applied animal science (2018) 8(2), 207-213 207 effect of genetic group, season, their interaction, temperature, humidity and temperature‐humidity index on maintenance behavior of stud bulls introduction stud bull plays an important role in the development of animal husbandry. animal husbandry is often affected by various factors, which has negative impact especially on animal welfare, health, and production (strmenova et al. 2013). the focus should be on maintenance behavior that indicates a problem in the herd, if proper management is not done in the farm. stud bulls play a unique role in cattle breeding. knowledge of maintenance behavior of stud bulls can markedly improve the efficiency and profitability, qual-ity of life of producers and their animals and integrity of the environment (iraola et al. 2013). sometimes it appears to be closely related to adverse situation, where animals are frus-trated or restricted, while in other cases does not occur, or persists even when the environment is improved (apple by and hughes, 1997). a well-balanced proportion of behav-iors for cattle can be assumed by making comparisons of time budget of behaviors and activity pattern between vari-ous rearing conditions (brouček et al. 2012). broom (1996) stud bull plays an important role in the development of animal husbandry. detailed knowledge about main-tenance behavior of stud bulls is essential for practicing better management conditions in the farm to sup-port the artificial insemination (ai) industry demand. therefore, a comparative study was conducted on stud bulls to evaluate the effect of genetic group, season, genetic group × season interaction, temperature, humidity and temperature humidity index (thi) on maintenance behavior. twenty five stud bulls (five bulls each from five different genetic groups) in two seasons (i.e. winter and summer) maintained at the frozen semen bull station, nadia, haringhata (west bengal), india were selected for the study. there was a significant effect of genetic group on eating (p<0.05), sitting (p<0.01), lying (p<0.01) and sleeping time (p<0.01), season on rumination (p<0.05) and sitting time (p<0.01), genetic group × season interaction on lying (p<0.01) and sleeping time (p<0.01), air temperature on drinking (p<0.05) and sleeping time (p<0.05), humidity on eating (p<0.01), rumination (p<0.01), sitting (p<0.01) and lying time (p<0.01) and thi on eating (p<0.05) and drinking time (p<0.05). there was no effect of genetic group, season, genetic group × season interaction, temperature, humidity and temperature humidity index on standing time. dif-ferent genetic groups responded differently in expression of different subcomponents of maintenance be-havior in two seasons.