EFFECT OF EARLY LAMBING ON NEXT LAMBS ON REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF AWASSI

M. Ajeel, H.; S. Faraj, M.; I. Saeed, N.; A. Thaer, Z.

	EFFECT OF EARLY LAMBING ON NEXT LAMBS ON REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF AWASSI
IRAQ JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE
Article 1, Volume 19, Issue 4, 2014, Pages 0-0
Authors
H. M. Ajeel; M. S. Faraj; N. I. Saeed; Z. A. Thaer
Abstract
The study was conducted to estimate the effect of early lambing on next following lambing sessions of Awassi yearling ewe's reproductive performance under semi-intensive System. Two groups of Awassi ewes (60 ewes) bred for four lambing seasons (2007-2010). Group one: 30 yearling ewes lambed at 12-15 month of age and group two: 30 yearling ewes lambed at 18-21 month of age. Fertility (ewes lambed per ewes joined), twinning percentage (twinning lambing per ewes lambed), lambing percentage (lambs born per ewes lambed), mortality (lambs died per lambs born) and weaning percentage (lambs weaned per ewes lambed) of ewes were estimated together with birth and weaning weights of their lambs. The result showed that early lambing in yearling group decreased fertility, twinning percentage (21.4% vs. 20.5%), lambing percentage (113% vs. 99.5%), lamb mortality (8.6% vs. 18.4%) and weaning percentage (111% vs. 98.3%) in both second and third lambing seasons compared with adult group. There was no significant effect of early lambing on reproductive performance between Yearling and adult ewes group in the fourth season was observed. It was concluded that early lambing of yearling Awassi ewes showed no significant effect on reproductive performance compared with adult ewes as a total of four sequence lambing seasons

Statistics Article View: 177 PDF Download: 158