Agricultural Science Digest
SCOPUS
  • Year: 2024
  • Volume: 44
  • Issue: 5

Genetic analysis of fitness traits of kashmir merino sheep at organized farms of Kashmir

  • Author:
  • Mubashir Ali Rather1,*, Ambreen Hamadani1, Tariq Ahmad Malik1, Imran Bashir1, Ishfaq Ahmad1
  • Total Page Count: 4
  • Page Number: 978 to 981

1Department of Sheep Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar-190 025, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India

*Corresponding Author: Mubashir Ali Rather, Department of Sheep Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar-190 025, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, Email: mubashir.70011@gmail.com

Online published on 12 November, 2024.

Abstract

Fitness traits include measures of reproductive efficiency of sheep. The improvement in reproductive efficiency has significant impact on overall economy of sheep.

Data spanning over 21 years (1997-2017) were collected from two sheep breeding farm and analyzed with mixed model least-squares maximum likelihood (LSMLMW) computer (PC-2) programme designed by Harvey (1990) to estimate number of lambs born per ewe (NLBE), number of lambs weaned per ewe (NLWE), litter size (LS) and sex ratio (SR) of Kashmir Merino sheep.

Overall estimates of 3.56±0.11, 3.20±0.10, 48.32±0.04 and 1.06±0.01 for number of lambs born per ewe (NLBE), number of lambs weaned per ewe (NLWE), litter size (LS) and sex ratio (SR), respectively were observed in the present study. The period of birth had significant (p<0.05) effect on NLBE and NLEE. The effect of sire was highly significant on all the traits under study whereas effect of all the non-genetic factors considered had non-significant effect on LS and SR.

Keywords

Lambs born per ewe, Litter size, Number of lambs weaned per ewe, Sex ratio (SR)