Studying genetic diversity of magra sheep using pedigree analyses

A study was carried out to estimate the genetic diversity through pedigree analysis of Magra sheep. Pedigree information of 5632 animals maintained between 1998 and 2020 was obtained from Arid Region Campus, ICAR-Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute, Bikaner (Rajasthan). The percentage of animals with a confirmed ancestry was 92.52%. The maximum number of generations and complete number of generations in the population were 11 and 5, respectively. Mean maximum generation (MG), complete generation (CG) and equivalent complete generation (EqG) were 5.35, 2.02 and 3.40, respectively. For the whole and reference population, f_e /f_a ratios were 1.13 and 1.32, the average relatedness were 2.17 and 2.64 % and the average generation intervals were 3.4 and 3.3 years, respectively. Magra sheep lost 2.2% genetic diversity and underwent bottleneck and genetic drift over time; however, a considerable genetic variability still exists in the population. Even when the inbreeding coefficient showed upward tendency over several generations, still it is below the recommended maximum limit of 1% each generation. It is crucial to introduce animals with unrelated ancestries to reduce average relatedness and inbreeding in the flock.