USE OF SIRE RAMS OF IMPORTED BREEDS TO INCREASE MEAT PERFORMANCE IN YOUNG ANIMALS OF PLANNED GENOTYPES

Abstract

Experimental studies have shown that the productive potential of sheep breeds and their crossbreeds reared in the Republic is sufficiently high. The imported animals have been well adapted to the technological conditions at small and large sheep-breeding enterprises. However, it should be noted that the purposeful improvement of meat qualities of commercial young sheep can be achieved by using in industrial crossbreeding the genetic potential of foreign meat-type sheep such as the Ile-de-France, Merinolandschaf and Texel breeds. In this connection, new and more effective options for their crossing and interline hybridization in pure breeding are being searched. On the basis of the findings obtained, the authors confirm the practicability of using in the breeding of wool-and-meat young sheep not only traditional linear measurements, including height at the withers, oblique body length, chest girth, etc., but also closely related parameters of the live-animal evaluation of meat performance characterizing the expressiveness of body conformation for meat animal.