78 Ghezel and 76 Mehraban sheep were used to evaluate the effect of fat-tail docking on reproductive performance. Within two days after birth the tails of 32 Ghezel female lambs and 28 Mehraban female lambs were docked using a tight rubber ring. The lambs were allowed to reproduce for three lambing opportunities and their reproductive performances were evaluated. The effect of docking on the fe...

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...

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of restricted feeding before puberty on growth performance and mammary gland development in replacement ewe lambs. At weaning, 72 Dorset ewe lambs were assigned to one of the three diets: an ad libitum control diet with medium-quality forage (MQF; diet A-MQF); a restricted diet with the same forage as A, but less feed concentrate (diet R-MQF); ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of premating ewe weight and age on ewe reproductive performance, lamb growth and survival in Central Anatolian Merino (CAM) sheep. The trial included 4935 ewes and 5548 lambs from 23 breeder flocks in Eskişehir Province. The live weights (LWs) and ages of the ewes were recorded 1 week before the mating season. The number of lambs born, fertility...

Birth and weaning weights were studied for purebred Finnsheep, Suffolk, Targhee and Minnesota 100; F1 Finnsheep crosses; F2: and standard breed and Finnsheep backcrosses. Finnsheep lambs were the smallest of all lambs at birth, but ranked second among purebreds in 70-day weaning weight (Suffolks, 21.0 kg vs Finnsheep, 17.6 kg). Ewe body weight, grease fleece production and total adjusted weight...

We investigated the utility of time-lapse photography to provide population estimates and lamb : ewe ratios of mountain sheep populations. We compared 2 methods of time-lapse data analysis: group sampling and frame sampling. We failed to reject the null hypothesis that population estimates and lamb : ewe ratios from time-lapse and direct observation sampling were the same.

Paper III Nørskov AK, Lundstrøm LH, Rosenstock CV, Wetterslev J. Detailed statistical analysis plan for the difficult airway management (DIFFICAIR) trial. Trials 2014, 15:173. Paper IV Nørskov AK, Wetterslev J, Rosenstock CV, Afshari A, Astrup G, Jakobsen JC, the DIFFICAIR trial author group, Lundstrøm LH. Effects of using the Simplified Airway Risk Index versus usual airway assessment on unant...

The ToxChip, a DNA microarray chip, allows the monitoring of the expression levels of thousands of different genes at a time, thereby condensing months of painstaking laboratory tasks into a day's work. For toxicology researchers in particular, this tool is important because it promises a more effective way to identify environmental hazards and their effects on DNA. The ToxChip, developed by NI...