The Dorper is a hardy South African composite breed, derived from a cross between the Black-headed Persian and the Dorset Horn. Dorpers are regarded as early-maturing, and ewes lambed at an age of 1 year in one study. Age at first lambing was higher in other literature sources cited. The fertility of Dorper ewes was approximately 0.90 ewes that lambed per ewe mated, with a litter size ranging f...

Ability to select service sires that minimize partial or complete losses of pregnancy could have major economic impacts in sheep production systems. This study tested the null hypothesis that survival of potential progeny did not vary with breed type of service sire or among individual rams. Data included 980 ewes on 10 farms; each ewe was pregnant to 1 of 67 rams of 12 breeds. Number of concep...

The growth, development and meat qualities characteristics of different genotypes lambs he growth features three ram-lambs, from their birth to six months age, were studied, in particular: purebred youngling the Ascanian Fine-Fleeced breed (AFF), a cross this gene pool with Texel (AFFxT) Merinolandschaf (AFFxM) breeds. Control over these experimental animals was carried out by weighing age peri...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of roasted soybean and sunflower meal on the consumption and growth performance of lambs from the Blackhead Pleven Breed. The results indicated that the addition of roasted soybean caused the lambs to grow significantly faster than those fed sunflower meal (P

O NE hundred seventy-nine ewe lambs from a three-breed polyallel cross involving the Willamette, Suffolk and Hampshire breeds were used to study the genetic aspects of fertility. Ewe birth weight, ewe weight at mating and fertility were analyzed in relation to heterosis, general combining ability, maternal effect, reciprocal differences, and the effects of a hormone treatment. Treatment consist...

data on 361 lambs of mehraban (n=90), ghezel (n=92), ghezel × mehraban (n=87), and mehraban × ghezel (n=92, sire breed listed first) were used to estimate individual heterosisfor lamb growth. the obtained results demonstrated that lambs of purebreds of ghezel and mehraban showed the highest and the lowest birth weight, respectively (p

An experiment was conducted to determine the relationship between nitrogen intake and testicular urea content. Twenty ram lambs of fat-tailed Iranian native breed were used in this study. The mean (±SD) age and body weight of the lambs were 180±20 days and 36.7±6.3 kg, respectively. The lambs were divided in to five groups of equal size, and received a ration containing a single protein source;...

To determine the effect of breed on copper status of crossbred (F1) lambs, a study was conducted using 187 crossbred wether lambs. Wether lambs were progeny of five ram breeds (Dorset, Finnsheep, Montadale, Romanov, and Texel) and two ewe breeds (Rambouillet and a composite breed [1/2 Columbia, 1/4 Suffolk, 1/4 Hampshire]). Diets were adjusted to decrease crude protein twice during the experime...