Preservation of cattle the breed of sychevka at the present stage of breeding

Purpose : to study the availability of genetic resources of the breed of Sychevka and their use for its conservation. Materials and methods . The object of research is the daughters of sires the breed of Sychevka used in the breeding network of the Smolensk region over the past 30 years. The materials for the research were data on breeding and zootechnical accounting of animals in the IAS "SELEX – Dairy Cattle" and data from Yearbooks on breeding work in dairy cattle breeding in the farms of the Russian Federation for the period from 1990 to 2023. The methodology of this work is related to the study of zootechnical techniques aimed at improving dairy cattle using general scientific zootechnical and population-genetic analysis methods. Results . It has been established that during the improvement of the breed of Sychevka, sires of Holstein and Simmental breeds were used in different time periods and with different intensity. The ratio of breeding bulls used in the region maintains a tendency to increase imported (Holstein and Simmental) and decrease domestic (breed of Sychevka) animals by 19,5 %. A comparative analysis of intra-linear selection options and selections at the cross of lines and related groups showed that the best results in milk yield in both cases were obtained with a combination of imported bulls, milk fat content at intra-linear — imported, at cross — domestic, milk protein content — domestic. Conclusion . So, in order to restore the population of cattle the breed of Sychevka using the remaining reserve of breeding bulls, it is extremely necessary to create a gene pool farm in the Smolensk region and carry out breeding, both to improve the productive qualities of animals and to preserve the genetic component of the breed.