Seasonality of breeding was evaluated in 165 purebred St. Croix ewes over a period of 3 yr at a latitude of 35 degrees 6' N. Ewes were divided into six groups for breeding starting in August of 1989 and a group was exposed to rams every 2 mo throughout the experiment. Lambing percentage was lowest for spring breeding (P < .01), which resulted in lower numbers born and weaned per ewe exposed (P ...

How predators select domestic relative to wild prey is of relevance to depredation management and presents opportunities to investigate foraging theory as applied to mammalian carnivores. Domestic prey have numerous qualities that should increase their energy value to predators relative to wild prey. However, whether a predator specializes on domestic prey should also depend on the relative imp...

Intrauterine laparoscopic insemination is diffuse in sheep breeding, yet requires veterinary expertise and expensive equipment. Our aim was to evaluate the time required, reproductive outcome post-operative complications of mini invasive laparotomic intrauterine insemination, as an alternative approach laparoscopy. A total 115 Sopravvissana breed ewes were enrolled, including 75 adults 40 lamb ...

Two experiments were designed to determine the effects of duration of lactation and plane of nutrition on the reproductive performance of Finn x Dorset Horn ewes mated at a hormonally induced oestrus 9 weeks after lambing. In Exp. 1, ewes were mated on 4 December or 19 March and lactation was terminated at 35 or 15 days before mating or 7 or 35 days after mating. The fertility of ewes lactating...

Lifetime lamb and wool production of 1/4 and 1/2 Finnish Landrace (Finn) crossbred ewes in comparison with local purebred controls was evaluated under range conditions. A total of 1,234 ewe lambs, representing nine breed groups, were first exposed to breeding at 7 mo of age and subsequently retained with no artificial culling, except for debilitating unsoundness, through 7 yr of production. Mat...

Bacterial isolations were attempted from milk samples taken from 242 range ewes in a southwestern Idaho shed lambing enterprise. Eighty-five percent of the ewe milk samples had no pathogenic bacterial growth at lambing and 3 weeks later. The few organisms that were isolated did not appear to affect udder condition of the ewe or contribute to lamb mortality. Shed conditions did not affect the fr...

The study was conducted on 40 Polish Merino ewes divided into two groups: experimental (E) and control (C), each of 20 animals. Four weeks before, and then on day 1, week 3 and week 6 post lambing all ewes from group E were given intramuscularly 5 ml 0.1% Na2SeO4, 10 ml 10% ZnSO4 and 250 mg vitamin E. In milk sampled 7 weeks after lambing the concentration of conjugated linoleic acid (0.66% of ...