This study was carried out at Alkhurmah Governorate; Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).Thirty weaned males of Najdi sheep aged between 3-4 months with average body weight 22.87±.0.18 kg were used for study. Animals were allotted to three comparable groups (10 lambs/each), the first group served as control (fed ration composed of 60% concentrate feed mixture (CFM) plus 40 % alfalfa hay) while ...

Abstract We consider the problem of estimating the distribution of carcass weights in a flock of animals from estimates made on a truncated sample. This arises when a farmer chooses the heaviest lambs for slaughter and then measurements are made by the meat processor. This enables a farmer to answer two questions: what proportion of the animals remaining exceed a nominated carcass weight, and/o...

Forty-eight crossbred ewes were subjected to heat stress of short or long duration during the last third of gestation in a completely randomized design to determine the effects of maternal heat stress on lamb birth weight, lamb conformation and subsequent preweaning growth rate. Ewe treatments were spring range pasture, confinement on slotted floors in a heated room maintained between 28 to 38 ...

Two experiments were performed to examine the ability of human pancreatic growth hormone releasing factor (hGRF) administration to stimulate endogenous growth hormone (GH) secretion in lambs. Each study utilized eight Dorset wether lambs in replicated 4 X 4 Latin square experiments. Growth hormone response (integrated area under the curve for 150 min post-injection) for 0, 1, 5 and 10 microgram...

Body condition was scored at lambing (BCSL) on 101 mature (4 to 7 yr old) Polypay ewes and related to colostral immunoglobulin G (IgG) concentration and lamb performance. Colostrum samples were collected from each ewe within 12 h of lambing and litters of more than two lambs were reduced to two within 2 h of lambing. Colostral IgG concentrations decreased rapidly with time (b = -3.28; R2 = .213...

twenty four male lambs divided into four groups and were allocated to 90, 105, 120 and 135 days of fattening periods.at the end of each fattening period, lambs were slaughtered. the percentage of cold carcass on the basis of empty body weight in the mentioned periods were 57.0 ± 0.94, 57.5 ±1.7, 59.9 ±3.3 and 62.2 ±4.4,respectively(p

Data from 1731 Gentile di Puglia lambs, sired by 65 rams over a 5-year period were analyzed by a mixed model to estimate the variance components for heritability. The considered growth traits were: birth weight (BW), weight at 30 days of age (W30) and average daily gain from birth to 30 days of age (DG). Year of birth, sex of lamb, type of birth (single or twin), dam age at lambing and farm wer...

Texel muscling quantitative trait locus (TM-QTL) is a QTL on chromosome 18, originally identified in purebred UK Texel sheep, which was reported to increase ultrasonically measured muscle depth at the third lumbar vertebra by around 4% to 7%. The objective of the present study was to comprehensively evaluate the TM-QTL and to determine whether it could provide benefits to the UK sheep industry ...

Three groups of ewe lambs born in May (experiment 1; n=211) or April (experiment 2; n=174) were used to evaluate the effects of selection line and induction of estrus on pregnancy rate. Experiment 1 was a single factor experiment with induction of estrus as the main effect. In early December, May-born Targhee (n=82) and Rambouillet x Targhee (n=129) ewes were randomly assigned within body weigh...

The reproductive efficiency of the entire sheep flock could be improved if ewe lambs go through puberty early and produce their first lamb at 1 year of age. The onset of puberty is linked to the attainment of critical body mass, and therefore we tested whether it would be influenced by genetic selection for growth rate or for rate of accumulation of muscle or fat. We studied 136 Merino ewe lamb...