HEMATOLOGIC INDICES OF SIMMENTAL YOUNG CATTLE UNDER DIFFERENT RAISING TECHNOLOGIES
Nowadays researchers report that intensive animal farming technologies are accompanied by increasing dependence of animal organism from artificially created environment: microclimate, nutrition, housing, etc. The ability of organism to adapt to the changing environment and to maintain own homeostasis under extreme conditions is of great importance for health preservation and performance of farm animals. The study of hematological indices, cell and humoral factors of organism protection was conducted in Simmental steers. The following groups were formed: the control group (the conventional beef production technology for dairy cattle breeding was used), and the trial group (the steers were raised according to beef production technology common for beef cattle breeding with nurse-cows to the age of 6 months. In terms of total protein, its larger content was found in the blood of Simmental steers raised by nurse-cow method. In terms of total protein the trial group steers outperformed their control group herd-mates by 6.4 g L (P > 0.95) at 6 months and by 6.0 g L (P > 0.95) at 18 months. A slight increase of total protein in blood of trial steers with the age was revealed which made 1.4-1.8% (P > 0.95). Such intergroup differences were found in hemoglobin content and red blood cell count. Under the influence of the nurse-cow method the trial group steers revealed the activation of humoral and cellular response; the values were higher than those of the control: bactericidal response - by 7.8% (P > 0.999), complementary response - by 1.0% (P > 0.999), lysozyme response - by 4.3% (P > 0.99), and phagocytic response - by 8.7% (P > 0.999).