This study was carried out to assess the effect of breed, sex, post-weaning nutrition, live weight at slaughter and their interactions on the cholesterol content in carcass fat of lambs. The carcasses were obtained from lambs of three indigenous Greek dairy breeds of sheep, the Boutsko (B), Serres (S) and Karagouniko (K) breed. After weaning (at approximately 42 days), the lambs of the three br...

Rams express differences in sexual performance during the breeding season. Breeding rams with high sexual performance scores as measured during a sexual performance test can improve flock fertility. Whether selecting rams for high sexual performance score will indirectly improve ewe reproductive performance is not known. The objective of this study was to estimate the genetic correlation betwee...

BACKGROUND Anaplasma phagocytophilum (formerly Ehrlichia phagocytophila) is an obligate intracellular bacterium causing the disease tick-borne fever (TBF) in domestic ruminants. An effective vaccine against the infection has been demanded for livestock by sheep farmers and veterinary practitioners for years. FINDINGS In the present study, we immunized lambs with an inactivated suspension of 1...

In order to determine the efficacy of melatonin implants in initiating the lambing season and improving reproductive efficiency in sheep, ewes (n= 1932) from three breeds (Rasa Aragonesa, Assaf and Merino) received melatonin implants (Group M) every 45 days from the winter solstice (1 January and 15 February—winter; 1 April and 15 May—spring) on 12 commercial farms. The other group of ewes (n= ...

The objective of this study was to assess the effects of milk replacer and rumen inert fat on growth, testicular development, puberty, semen production and sperm motion characteristics of ram lambs reared under intensive management in semi-arid climatic conditions. Seven-day-old male lambs of Malpura breed (n=20) were divided equally into two groups. Up to weaning, the lambs in G1 group (contro...

This study investigated the relative bioavailability (RBV) of zinc from different sources used as feed additives in ruminant nutrition based on Zn concentration and activity Zn-dependent enzymes lamb tissues. Thirty-two male lambs Improved Valachian breed (three months old) were randomly assigned to four dietary treatments. For 120 days, fed either total mix ration (TMR) providing 29.6 mg Zn/kg...

A growth experiment with 108 lambs (breed: German Merino Landsheep) was carried out to examine the effect of gender, body weight (BW) and feeding intensity on the deposition of Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn in the empty body (whole animal minus contents of the gastrointestinal tract and bladder). The lambs (50% female and 50% male animals) were fed at three feeding levels ('low', 'medium' and 'high' by var...

To assess genetic diversity and maternal origin of Turkish and Iranian native chicken breeds, we analyzed the mtDNA D-loop sequences of 222 chickens from 2 Turkish (Denizli and Gerze) and 7 Iranian (White Marandi, Black Marandi, Naked Neck, Common Breed, Lari, West Azarbaijan, and New Hampshire) native chicken breeds, together with the available reference sequences of G. gallus gallus in GenBan...

The objectives of the present study were to analyze different environmental factors affecting pre-weaning growth performance of Mengali sheep. Performance records on 2377 lambs in four flocks maintained at Experimental Station, Centre for Advanced Studies in Vaccinology and Biotechnology, Quetta (ESC), Mastung, Nushki and Quetta area over a period of 5 years (Jan 2005 to Dec 2009) were analysed...

effects of partial docking on feedlot performance and body fat characteristics were studied in a fat-tailed sheep breed. thirty-eight male lambs with an average weight of 4.44 ± 0.48 were randomly divided into two groups. the lambs in one group were partially docked at 3-4 h after birth, using rubber rings, and the lambs in another group remained intact (control). after weaning, 20 male lambs f...