The number of lambs sold per ewe mated in the breeding flock has a considerable impact on sheep operation profitability. This depends primarily on fertility, prolificacy (# of lambs), and lamb survival, mothering ability, milk production of the ewe and lamb growth rate. Optimal reproduction does vary by environment and management system – some sheep operations don’t want a lambing rate over 200...

Sheep and goat breeds are selected worldwide for meat, wool, and dairy production, and breeding objectives also include other functional traits such as reproductive performance and disease resistance. In early 2007, the development of next-generation sequencing (NGS) allowed de novo sequencing of sheep (Jiang et al., 2014) and goat genomes (Dong et al., 2013). In turn, it offered an opportunity...

The study of factors affecting the humidity and contamination outer inner zones staple, which further affects yield pure wool its technological properties, is one current problems fine-fleeced sheep breeding. Purpose – evaluate protective properties fleece depending on rank breeding differentiation sheep. determination ranks based regularities normal distribution animals in population herd repr...

We determined the polymorphism C242T of the aromatase gene (Cyp19) and its allelic frequency, as well as the effect of the variants on productive and reproductive traits in 71 purebred Santa Inês sheep, 13 purebred Brazilian Somali sheep, nine purebred Poll Dorset sheep, and 18 crossbred 1/2 Dorper sheep. The animals were genotyped using the PCR-RFLP technique. The influence of the animal's gen...

Photoperiod is the proximate cue which times the reproductive period of the sheep and the role of daylength as a "zeitgeber" is evaluated in this report. Although sheep are regarded as a short-day breeding species, the reproductive period of the Suffolk ewe begins on daylengths which are on average 2.5 hours longer than those on which it ends. The reasons for this apparent anomaly are considere...

Wool and meat contribute to profit in sheep enterprises and both need to be considered in breeding programs. The relative responses expected from selection for a range of traits are presented and the realised responses that have been achieved in Merinos and variation in maternal breeds are illustrated. Knowledge of genetic parameters is required for the development of complex breeding objective...

Fly strike in sheep has been estimated to cost the Australian sheep industry approximately $280m dollars annually (Sackett et al. 2006) as a result of sheep losses, cost of treatment and loss of wool and carcase production and value. Historically Australian sheep producers have surgically removed skin from around the tail (mulesing) to help avoid fly strike. Although this has proved highly succ...

In our previous study, we investigated the regulatory relationship between lncRNAs, miRNA, and mRNAs in an effort to shed light onto the regulatory mechanisms involved in sheep fecundity. As an extension of this study, here, we aimed to identify potential regulators of sheep fecundity using a genome-wide analysis of miRNAs and the methylated genes encoding mRNAs and lncRNAs in the ovaries of Do...

Identification of breeding objective traits pertinent to specific production environments with the involvement of target beneficiaries is crucial to the success of a breed improvement program. A choice experiment was conducted in four locations representing different production systems and agro-ecologies that are habitat to four indigenous sheep breeds (Afar, Bonga, Horro and Menz) of Ethiopia ...

Economic weights for sow productivity traits in pure-line pig populations were derived from a single profit equation in order to provide flexibility to alternative market requirements or production systems. The profit function method was modified to account for differences in piglet perinatal survival environment imposed by litter size at birth. Both the 100kg finished pig and the feeder pig ma...