Abstract
This study was conducted at the college of agriculture – Al-Qasim Green University to investigate the effect of breed and age of dams on several growth traits of two sheep breeds, including 123 Iraqi Awassi and 78 Iranian Karakul breeds. Variables growth traits were examined in the present study, namely body weight (BW), body length (BL), wither height (WH), rump height (RH), and chest circumference (CC), and abdominal circumference (AC). Results indicated the absence of a significant effect between both breeds in all investigated growth traits in birth. Meanwhile, a significant (P<0.05) superiority of Karakul over Awassi was detected in month-3 in three growth traits (BW, WH, and RH), and in month-6, in four growth traits (BW, WH, RH, and BL). The age of dams exhibited a significant (P<0.05) effect on the majority of lambs’ growth traits since lambs born from dams aged over 4 years gave more values than those born from dams aged less than 4 years. Sex of lambs had also contributed to growth traits measurements since higher values were collected from several growth males over females in month-3 (BW, BH, and RH), and month-6 (BW, BL, WH, and RH). Time of birth had also yielded significantly (P<0.05) better values for lambs born in January over those born in other months. However, lambs born in December gave better traits than other lambs. In conclusion, this study demonstrated the obvious superiority of Karakul over Awassi breed in the majority of growth traits measured.
Highlights
The growth traits in sheep can largely be improved via increasing the rate of reproduction to get higher marketing standards
Variables growth traits were examined in the present study, namely body weight (BW), body length (BL), wither height (WH), rump height (RH), and chest circumference (CC), and abdominal circumference (AC)
A significant (P
Summary
The growth traits in sheep can largely be improved via increasing the rate of reproduction to get higher marketing standards. Awassi sheep is one of the most predominant fat-tailed sheep in the Middle East (7) This breed is highly known for its higher distribution in Iraq which constitutes about 58% of the national welfare in this country (6). Accumulated data of recent literature have been reported to describe the remarkable effect of dams age, breed, the timing of birth on the early growth and weight of lambs (8, 31). Though both Awassi and Karakul breeds have widely been studied, no direct comparison has been provided to describe growth trait differences between them. Statistical analysis The effects of breed, age of dams, birth date, and sex of lambs on growth traits measurements were analyzed using SAS software (30). Interactions between variables were computed using univariate analysis in the general linear model procedure of SAS statistical package ver
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