Prediction of Turkish Awassi sheep performance from hemoglobin type for selection purpose

Abstract

This study was undertaken at the Ruminants Researches Station pertaining to the Directorate for Agricultural Researches/ Ministry of Agriculture, Laboratory at the Ministry of Science and Technology during the period from 1/10/2014 until 1/6/2015. The aim of this study was to in defend the hemoglobin type and its relationship with some productive and reproductive traits in 50 ewes and their progeny from Turkish Awassi sheep. The percentage of hemoglobin type distribution in sample of studied ewes was 78.00% for BB type, 22.00% for AB type with absence of AA type and the differences between these percentages was highly significant. Frequencies of alleles were 0.89 B allele while the frequency for allele (A) was 0.11 according to the analysis of hemoglobin type. The variance in daily milk yield with different of hemoglobin type had non-significant, while the effect of the type of hemoglobin in total milk yield was highly significant (P<0.01). The ewes with B type gave the highest total milk yield (132.24 kg/ season) as compared with 82.15 kg/season in AB ewes type. The significant (P<0.05) difference were noticed between lactation period and hemoglobin type. The effect of hemoglobin type in the percentage of milk fat was significant (P<0.05), but the differences among hemoglobin type and other milk components (lactose, protein and total solid nonfat) lacked significance. Non-significant effect of hemoglobin type on growth traits was observed. There are a significant differences (P<0.01) in the average of ewes prolificacy with difference of Hemoglobin types, being AB type gave the highest prolificacy (0.07±1.45 lambs) compared with B type (0.06±1.28 lambs). In conclusion, It is possible to adopt hemoglobin type as a marker for sheep breeding strategies to maximize the economic income of these schemes throughout selection and crossing with elile individuals achieved highest performance