This study was done from September 2006 to May 2007. A total of 105 Menz breed sheep from Yemenze Gera Midir district in the Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia. The spatial distribution of sheep keds (Melophagus ovinus) and chewing lice (Bovicola ovis) on Menz breed sheep were examined which were naturally infested. The densities if sheep keds and lice were determined through counting aft...

BACKGROUND Sheep (Ovis aries) were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent region about 9,000-8,000 years ago. Currently, few mitochondrial (mt) DNA studies are available on archaeological sheep. In particular, no data on archaeological European sheep are available. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Here we describe the first portion of mtDNA sequence of a Copper Age European sheep. DNA was extract...

Lameness in sheep continues to be a global health, welfare and economic concern. Damaged, misshapen or overgrown feet have the potential cause lameness either directly, indirectly. There is lack of understanding predisposing factors for different hoof conformation traits sheep. Our exploratory study aimed investigate prevalence of, risk for, three distinct relating sole heel, wall, wall overgro...

High-throughput mRNA sequencing enables the discovery of new transcripts and additional parts of incompletely annotated transcripts. Compared with the human and cow genomes, the reference annotation level of the sheep genome is still low. An investigation of new transcripts in sheep skeletal muscle will improve our understanding of muscle development. Therefore, applying high-throughput sequenc...

This study was carried out from November 2007 to March 2008 to identify the species and to determine the burden of small intestinal helminth parasites of sheep and goats slaughtered in Hawassa, southern Ethiopia. Intestines of 116 sheep and 71 goats were examined using standard procedures. Three species of parasites namely Trichostrongylus colubriformis, Bunostomum trigonocephalum and Moniezia ...

The pharmacokinetic behaviour of an ampicillin/sulbactam (2:1) combination was studied after intramuscular administration of a single dose (20 mg/kg body weight: 13.33 mg/kg of ampicillin and 6.67 mg/kg of sulbactam) to six sheep and six goats. The objective was to determine whether there were differences between sheep and goats in the disposition profiles of ampicillin and sulbactam. The dispo...

miRNAs and lncRNAs, which represent one of the most highly expressed classes of ncRNAs in development, are attracting increasing interest. A variety of regulators is considered to be implicated in sheep species with different fecundity. However, interactions between miRNAs and lncRNAs and changes in the expression of regulatory lncRNAs in sheep fecundity have not yet been reported. To character...

Humoral response of sheep to F. gigantica was compared with the well known humoral response to F. hepatica, in order to explain the difference of susceptibility of sheep to these two parasites. In this work, a lesser susceptibility of sheep to F. gigantica than to F. hepatica infection was confirmed. Humoral response to F. hepatica infection is similar to that previously described by several au...

A consensus of expert opinion was used to provide both face and consensual validity to a list of potential indicators of sheep welfare. This approach was used as a first step in the identification of valid welfare indicators for sheep. The consensus methodology of the National Institute of Health, using pre-meeting consultation and focus group discussions, was used to ascertain the consensus op...

Goats and some sheep synthesize a juvenile hemoglobin, Hb C (alpha 2 beta C2), at birth and produce this hemoglobin exclusively during severe anemia. Sheep that synthesize this juvenile hemoglobin are of the A haplotype. Other sheep, belonging to a separate group, the B haplotype, do not synthesize hemoglobin C and during anemia continue to produce their adult hemoglobin. To understand the basi...