Estimation of growth traits heritability coefficients in sheep

Krstina Zeljic,Cvijan Mekic,Dragana Ruzic-Muslic,Nenad Stojiljkovic,Dragan Stanojevic,Vladan Bogdanovic,Nevena Maksimovic

doi:10.2298/bah1904347z

Abstract

The objective of this research paper was to estimate heritability coefficients (heritability) of growth traits in the lambs of indigenous Sjenicka Pramenka breed. The research was conducted on a sample which included 421 lambs the descendants of 15 sires and 187 sheep-dams, raised on 3 private farms in Kolubarski district, Serbia. The effect of fixed factors was studied while the values of heritability coefficients were estimated within the frame of SAS software package. A statistically highly significant (**=P<0.01) effect on studied traits had following parameters: sex, year of lambing, type of lambing, farm and method of applied reproductive technology. By means of REML method and using the sire model the values of heritability coefficients were determined for the following traits: average lamb birth weight (BW0), average lamb body weight at 30 days (BW30) and average lamb body weight at 90 days (BW90) being: 0.0355; 0.4642 and 0.3018, respectively.

Highlights

In total value of agricultural production in 2017. livestock production accounted for 38.3%, the highest rise being recorded in sheep breeding (7.4%) what makes this branch of agriculture very important for our country
By means of REML method and using the sire model the values of heritability coefficients were determined for the following traits: average lamb birth weight (BW0), average lamb body weight at 30 days (BW30) and average lamb body weight at 90 days (BW90) being: 0.0355; 0.4642 and 0.3018, respectively
Regarding the breed composition the largest part of sheep population is made of indigenous Pramenka sheep breed, in central Europe known as Zackel (Drăgănescu and Grosu, 2010), of combined direction of production within which stock the largest number of animals belong to Sjenica strain

Summary

Introduction

In total value of agricultural production in 2017. livestock production accounted for 38.3%, the highest rise being recorded in sheep breeding (7.4%) what makes this branch of agriculture very important for our country. Besides the size of sheep population, sheep fertility (number of lambs in litter, number of lambing per year), along with nutrition, fattening and lamb slaughter traits (Senčić et al, 2010) has an important effect on meat production as well. Production of lamb meat obtained from young lambs up to 90 days old, and of the carcass weight of 10 to 12 kg, i.e. about 25 kg live weight, is a predominant one. By improvement aimed at increasing the production of meat the obtaining of lambs with higher daily weight gain (over 300 g), higher final body weight at 90 days (over 28 kg), as well as higher dressing percentage of more than 58% (Petrović et al, 2013) should be rendered possible. By breeding purebred animals a high quality meat is obtained as a result of breeding and nutrition in a preserved and abundant natural environment such as it is in a hilly-mountainous region of our country

Methods

Results

Conclusion