To investigate the extent to which enteric methane (CH4) emissions from growing lambs are explained by simple body weight and diet characteristics, a 2 × 2 Latin square changeover design experiment was carried out using two sheep breeds and two fresh pasture types. Weaned lambs of two contrasting breed types were used: Welsh Mountain (WM, a small, hardy hill breed) and Welsh Mule × Texel (TexX,...

BACKGROUND It has been questioned if the old native Norwegian sheep breed, Old Norse Sheep (also called Norwegian Feral Sheep), normally distributed on coastal areas where ticks are abundant, is more protected against tick-borne infections than other Norwegian breeds due to a continuously high selection pressure on pasture. The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesis in an experime...

Abstract. Tail fat content affects meat quality and varies significantly among different breeds of sheep. Ghezel (fat-tailed) Zel (thin-tailed) are two important Iranian local sheep with patterns storage. The current study presents the transcriptome characterization tail using RNA sequencing in order to get a better comprehension molecular mechanism lipid storage mentioned breeds. Seven (Zel = ...

BACKGROUND The gullet worm, Gongylonema pulchrum Molin, 1857, is a thread-like spirurid nematode found in a variety of mammals worldwide. Its incidences in Iranian cattle of different breed or age have not been reported. The aims of the present study are to disclose the infection status of G. pulchrum in cattle slaughtered in northern region of Iran. METHODS Full-length esophagi of cattle of ...

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The differences of fertility and prolificacy traits for Rahmani and Chios ewes were studied in this investigation. The study was conducted during two consecutive years that included three lambing season with a total of 273 ewes (162 Rahmani and 111 Chios) bred, 230 ewes lambing, 280 lambs born and 237 lambs weaned. Breed of ewes had a significant effect on fecundity, lambing rate and weaning ra...

Quality measures of lamb longissimus dorsi were evaluated in 514 crossbred wether lambs to assess sire breed differences. Wethers were produced over 3 yr from single-sire matings of 22 Columbia, 22 U.S. Meat Animal Research Center (USMARC)-Composite (Composite), 21 Suffolk, and 17 Texel rams to adult Rambouillet ewes. Lambs were reared to weaning in an extensive western rangeland production sys...

The effects of Spirulina supplementation, sire breed, sex and basal diet on intramuscular fat percentage (IMF) and fat melting point (FMP) in crossbred and purebred Merino lambs were investigated. Over two consecutive years, a total of 48 lambs was randomly allocated into feeding trials that utilised either ryegrass or Lucerne hay basal diets. Each treatment group had 8 lambs balanced by sire b...

A reduction in food intake is a prominent feature of many infectious diseases. However, the underlying mechanisms of parasite-induced anorexia in sheep are poorly understood. Here, we tested the hypotheses (a) that the degree of parasite-induced anorexia in lambs is influenced by their growth potential and (b) that nematode infection results in elevated plasma leptin concentration in lambs. The...

Developmental potencies of sheep somatic cells (foetal fibroblasts, FFs) in chimaeric animals were analysed. FFs from pigmented Polish Heatherhead (wrzosowka) breed were microsurgically injected into morulae or blastocysts of white Polish Merino breed (5 cells to each embryo). In one experiment the cells were stained with vital fluorescent dye PKH26, and chimaeric blastocysts were cultured in v...