REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF TWO BREEDING GROUPS OF AWASSI EWES UNDER SEMI-INTENSIVE SYSTEM

M. Ajeel, H.; A. Taha, S.; M. Edrees, S.; N. Abdullah, A.

	REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF TWO BREEDING GROUPS OF AWASSI EWES UNDER SEMI-INTENSIVE SYSTEM
IRAQ JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE
Article 1, Volume 14, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 0-0
Authors
H. M. Ajeel; S. A. Taha; S. M. Edrees; A. N. Abdullah
Abstract
The study was conducted to estimate the reproductive performance of two breeding group of Awassi ewes (1208 ewes) bred for two lambing seasons ( 2006 - 2007) under semi-intensive system 300 native Awassi ewes and 908 imported Awassi ewes were joined to rams in the first season (2006) and 135 native Awassi ewes and 378 imported ewes were joined in second season (2007). 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 ), Prolificacy (lambs weaned per ewes joined) and weaning percentage (lambs weaned per ewes lambed) were tested . In both lambing season imported ewes were surpassed native group in fertility (93.4% compared with 82.6%), twinning percentage( 21.4% compared with 20.5%), lambing percentage (113% compared with 99.5%), Lamb mortality (8.6% compared with 18.4%), prolificacy (104% compared with 81.2%) and weaning percentage( 111% compared with 98.3%). Native Awassi ewes improved their reproductive performance in the second season compared with the first season and the improvement was significantly in mortality (7.2% compared with 23.7%) and weaning percentage (97.7% compared with 74%) . It was concluded that imported Awassi ewes were superior to native ewes under semi-intensive System in there reproductive performance .

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