This thesis concerns an investigation of the ability of sheep to withstand cold. It includes studies of the initial cold resistance, the ability to acclimatize to cold, and of the variation within and between breeds of sheep. The cold resistance of shorn Scottish Blackface, Southdown and Welsh Mountain sheep, equal numbers on high or maintenance levels of nutrition, was measured by the rate of ...

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) plays a central role in the control of disease resistance and immune response. Extensive genetic diversity in MHC genes provides a valuable source for genetic improvement, via selection, in many domestic animals. Exon 2 of the class II MHC, termed Ovar-DRB1 in domestic sheep (Ovis aries), has been suggested as important disease resistance and immune re...

Development of the Polypay breed was undertaken to combine into a composite breed the potential for greatly increased reproductive capacity along with desirable growth rate and carcass quality. Four breeds were selected for the foundation of the new breed--the Rambouillet and the Targhee for hardiness, large body size, long breeding season, herding instinct and fleece characteristics; the Dorse...

Sporidesmin is the mycotoxin that causes facial eczema disease (FE) in New Zealand (NZ) livestock. In an artificial sporidesmin dosing test, the introduced Finnish Landrace sheep breed was found to be significantly more tolerant to FE than the introduced Texel breed. This finding enables cross-breeding strategies to improve disease tolerance. Combining published data with the current study, a t...

The neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn) plays an important role in regulating IgG homeostasis in the body and passive protection to the offspring. Changes in FcRn expression levels caused by genetic polymorphisms of Fcgrt, which encodes FcRn, may lead to inter-individual differences in colostrum IgG levels in sheep. In this study, we sequenced the FcRn partial heavy chain from 179 sheep from Xinjiang P...

ABSTRACT: Sheep production is expanding among small farmers in Southern Uruguay. Currently, Corriedale and Milchschaf are being used, but not Highlander. However, there lack of experimental information regarding the relative performance these breeds. We conducted an experiment where three sheep breeds were run together at Regional Centre, located region question. Wool, body, reproductive lamb g...

The aim of this study is to estimate body weight from withers height, body length, and chest girth measurements by using Regression Tree (RT) Method. For this purpose, data were collected from 239 male sheep at yearling age (11-13 months) of five indigenous sheep breeds (Mengali (48), Balochi (48), Harnai (48), Beverigh (47) and Rakhshani (48)) reared in Balochistan, Pakistan. Bivariate relatio...

abstract the whole blood potassium concentration has shown the bimodal distribution in sheep, which has been classified into lk and hk types; hk allele is recessive to lk with a single gene inheritance. this polymorphism showed different behavior in different environment, which could be due to adaptation process. this research was conducted on the zel and kermani breed research station, which k...

Sheep are among the major economically important livestock species worldwide because the animals produce milk, wool, skin, and meat. In the present study, the Illumina OvineSNP50 BeadChip was used to investigate genetic diversity and genome selection among Suffolk, Rambouillet, Columbia, Polypay, and Targhee sheep breeds from the United States. After quality-control filtering of SNPs (single nu...

This study aimed to investigate the bone development of two mountain sheep breeds during natural summer grazing either in the lowlands or on different characteristic alpine pastures. Pasture types differed in topographic slope, plant species composition, general nutritional feeding value, Ca and P content, and Ca:P ratio of herbage. Twenty-seven Engadine sheep (ES) lambs and 27 Valaisian Black ...