This paper examines the environmental and management factors affecting lamb survival on high-performing sheep farms in New Zealand. Improved lambing percentage is the biggest contributor to higher profits on New Zealand sheep farms. Many sheep breeders have selected and bred ewes for increased fecundity over the last 4 decades. The increased proportion of ewes having triplets is of concern to f...

To measure an unbiased farm-specific efficiency of individual dairy farmers, a shadow-price profit frontier adjusted for market distortion was applied to a sample of 860 Iranian small intensive dairy farms surveyed in 2005-2006. This measure was then compared with that of unadjusted measure that assumes undistorted market. A multiple general linear model (GLM) technique was applied to the data ...

Previous, small scale, studies have suggested that people of mixed race are perceived as being more attractive than non-mixed-race people. Here, it is suggested that the reason for this is the genetic process of heterosis or hybrid vigour (ie cross-bred offspring have greater genetic fitness than pure-bred offspring). A random sample of 1205 black, white, and mixed-race faces was collected. The...

After the analysis of the relation between the serum protein and the immunoglobulin-G content of the colostrum and the milk of 141 cattle of various genotypes (pure-bred or cross-bred), 55 goats of various breeds and 171 sheep of various breeds, it was established that there exists a very close correlation between these two components in all three species. R values of 0.9869 for cattle, 0.9723 ...

A 5-year-old male cross-bred guard dog with signs of anorexia, vomiting and jaundice was referred to Small Animal Hospital, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tehran. Initial diagnostic laboratory tests revealed leukocytosis, thrombocytopenia, haemoconcentration, azotaemia, high liver enzyme activities, proteinuria and bilirubinuria. Aggressive therapeutic procedures failed to improv...