Change in Morphometric Characteristics of Udder During Milking of Jenny

Abstract

Donkey breeding in both Europe and worldwide is gaining a momentum. An increasingly common reason for breeding donkeys is milk production. Unfortunately, donkey belongs to a group of rare domestic animals and systematic selection for their milk production has almost never been made. Donkey is most commonly used as a working animal. In order to examine the basic morphometric parameters of the udders of dairy donkeys, research was carried out on 15 dairy donkeys, bred on the farm of the Special Nature Reserve Zasavica in Zasavica near Sremska Mitrovica, in the Republic of Serbia. Donkeys are housed in groups in pens, without tethering. After milking, the foals were with them, and during milking mothers had visual contact with their foals. Milking was performed manually, and the amount of milk was determined by pouring it into a plastic measuring cup. Two milkings were performed two h apart. The average amount of milk obtained per day per donkey is 346.6 ml. There is a large variation interval between the minimum and maximum amount of milk obtained which indicates the heterogeneity of the individuals used in production and that there was no selection work for this type of production. The average amount of milk is smaller compared to Zapata where selection for milk production was made. Morphological characteristics of the udder differ statistically very significantly before and after milking, especially in relation to udder circumference, teat circumference and teat width. No statistically significant difference was found for the amount of milk obtained from left or right mammary complex.