The short-tailed sheep, native of an area stretching from Russia to Iceland, are generally considered a primitive type. These robust northern sheep seem to have been spread by Norse vikings to several countries in this area from the late eighth century to the middle of the eleventh century ad. They have several common characteristics in addition to the fluke-shaped and tapered short tail, such ...

The genetic polymorphism of some genes related to meat production in three Egyptian sheep breeds (Barki, Rahmani and Osseimi) was studied. The candidate genes were: Calpastatin, Myostatin, Diacylglycerol-acyltransferase1, Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 and Booroola fecundity gene. The technique applied was the restriction fragment length polymorphism for the polymerase chain react...

BACKGROUND Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly contagious viral disease of small ruminants in Asia and Africa. In 2008, a PPR outbreak was reported for the first time in Morocco and a mass vaccination campaign allowed control of the disease. In this study, the susceptibility of four Moroccan local breeds of small ruminants to PPR virus was investigated by experimental infections. The o...

b-lactoglobulin (coded by the b-lg gene) is the major milk whey protein in ruminants. studies have shown that this protein is polymorphic in many breeds of sheep as a result of a single base pair substitution in the b-lg gene that also gives rise to rsai restriction fragment length polymorphism (rflp). blood samples were collected from 391 animals belonging to 5 iranian and 6 russian sheep bree...

THE AIM OF THIS STUDY WAS TO INVESTIGATE THE GENETIC DIVERSITY WITHIN AND AMONG THREE BREEDS OF SHEEP: Corriedale, Merino and Creole. Sheep from the three breeds (Merino n = 110, Corriedale n = 108 and Creole n = 10) were genotyped using the Illumina Ovine SNP50 beadchip(®). Genetic diversity was evaluated by comparing the minor allele frequency (MAF) among breeds. Population structure and gene...

Karoo paralysis in South Africa is induced in livestock by feeding female Ixodes rubicundus ticks when infestation densities on hosts exceed certain critical levels. It has been shown previously that Angora goats are at a higher risk of being paralysed than Merino sheep, and such differences have been related to differences in feeding behaviour and spatial distribution of the two small-stock br...

Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae is an important respiratory pathogen of sheep across the world. In the present study nasal swab samples (n=778) were processed and 51isolates of M. ovipneumoniae were identified through biochemical tests and PCR. Difference in the isolation rate among districts (n=12), age groups (n=3), breads (n=6) was assessed. Similarly the isolate rate among healthy (n=513) and resp...

Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae is an important respiratory pathogen of sheep across the world. In the present study nasal swab samples (n=778) were processed and 51isolates of M. ovipneumoniae were identified through biochemical tests and PCR. Difference in the isolation rate among districts (n=12), age groups (n=3), breads (n=6) was assessed. Similarly the isolate rate among healthy (n=513) and resp...

Chinese indigenous sheep can be classified into three types based on tail morphology: fat-tailed, fat-rumped, and thin-tailed sheep, of which the typical breeds are large-tailed Han sheep, Altay sheep, and Tibetan sheep, respectively. To unravel the genetic mechanisms underlying the phenotypic differences among Chinese indigenous sheep with tails of three different types, we used ovine high-den...

The domestic sheep (Ovis aries) has been an economically and culturally important farm animal species since its domestication around the world. A wide array of sheep breeds with abundant phenotypic diversity exists including domestication and selection as well as the indigenous breeds may harbor specific features as a result of adaptation to their environment. The objective of this study was to...