Effects of upgrading Turkish Angora goats with American Angoras

Abstract

The objective was to estimate upgrading effects on BW and mohair traits in a herd of Turkish Angora goats that had been crossed with American Angoras. Birth weight, BW at 105 days and 6 months (3615 animals), BW at 12 months and yearling fleece weight (2384 animals), staple length and fibre diameter (1674 animals) were analyzed. Since American does were not represented, maternal population difference and heterosis were only estimable as a sum. Individual population difference and heterosis resulted in increase of birth weight by 30% of the mean of the Turkish breed. In older animals, individual population difference tended to be negative and, along with positive heterosis, resulted in small but negative total crossbreeding effects. Yearling fleece weight was increased by individual crossbreeding effects by 11% of the mean, mainly due to the population difference. Crossbreeding effects on staple length and fibre diameter were minimal, with a tendency towards a negative population difference. Maternal crossbreeding effects were minimal for all traits, which could be due to an antagonism between population difference and heterosis. On the individual level this had been observed for most traits. The experiment indicated that upgrading of the Turkish breed was unexpectedly poor, both in BW and mohair traits. It is questionable whether the costly import of American Angoras is justified to improve the Turkish goats. Further research and a more appropriate design is needed to clarify the role of recombination effects and to disentangle maternal population difference and heterosis.