The aim of this thesis was to study potential breeding strategies for indigenous livestock in Eastern and Southern Africa under low input production systems. The thesis covered a study of the status of supportive infrastructure for use of animal genetic resources. The case of Red Maasai sheep was studied as a model for design of strategies for improvement of an indigenous breed under threat. St...

Three selection indexes for the UK hill sheep sector are derived to suit the extremes of hill production systems. These are: (i) intensive, where all surplus lambs not required for breeding are finished for slaughter, (ii) extensive, where all surplus ‘store’ lambs are sold to other farmers for finishing, and (iii) semi-intensive, which is intermediate between the two extremes, i.e. farms finis...

In West Africa, consumers pay a major attention on the coat colour of the sheep due to religious and cultural reasons. White coated individuals reach selling prices up to three-fold higher than black coated sheep. The aim of this study was to ascertain the genotypic and allelic frequencies of MC1R and ASIP genes in order to assess possible implementation of breeding programmes focusing on the i...

Maedi Visna (MV) has been identified as a common viral infection in Ontario sheep. The Maedi Visna Flock Status Pilot Project (MVFSP) sets a protocol for control and eradication of this disease. A static normative model was designed to measure the economic benefit of such a program. Of the 16 producers enrolled on the program in 2002, 15 cooperated and were surveyed. Two benefits were identifie...

Artificial selection has played a critical role in animal breeding. Detection of artificial selection footprints in genomic regions can provide insights for understanding the function of specific phenotypic traits and better guide animal breeding. To more fully understand the relationship between genomic composition and phenotypic diversity arising from breed development, a genome-wide scan was...

An outbreak of sheep pox occurred in December 2001 on a sheep breeding farm in Jammu, India. The farm maintains three exotic breeds of sheep, i.e. American Merino, Rambouillet and Australian cross. The disease agent was confirmed as sheep pox virus by clinical and post-mortem examination as well as laboratory testing. Typical pock lesions were dispersed over the body of the affected animals wit...

in this study, the number of 1802 longevity records of ewes collected during 1989 to 2010 in breeding station of lori-bakhtiari sheep flocks were used to estimate of genetic, environmental and phenotypic trends for economic lifetime. the breeding values of a ewe’s lifetime were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood procedure under an animal model of univariate analysis. the best linear unb...

Research into physiology and embryology has provided a basis for the development of technologies that increase productivity of farm animals through enhanced control of reproductive function. Progestagens, alone or in combination with luteolysins, are used to control the time of oestrus in cattle, sheep and pigs, thus permitting better use of artificial insemination, providing synchronised recip...

background: with the increasing concern for health and nutrition, dietary fat has attracted considerable attention. the composition of fatty acids in the diet is important because they are associated with major diseases including cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. the fatty acid synthase (fasn) and stearoyl-coa desaturase (delta-9-desaturase) (scd) genes affect fatty acid compositio...

Breeding programs for sheep in Norway are based on cooperatives of ram circles (RC). The key features of RC are selection of rams across member flocks and their rotation among RC flocks during the mating season. Genetic gains are disseminated to flocks outside RC (ORC). In both groups, natural service and AI are practiced. The objectives were to investigate 1) connectedness within and across RC...