Productive Parameters and Physical Characteristics of Crossbred Thalli Sheep × Mundri Ram

A cross of Thalli female sheep with Mundri Ram was conducted at Camel Breeding and Research Station (CBRS) Rakh-Mahni during the year 2017-18. For control experiment Thalli female sheep (n=26) were crossed with Thalli Ram while for experimental group Thalli female sheep (n=26) were crossed with Mundri Ram. One Thalli and One Mundri Ram was used for breeding of females.

All animals were tagged on ear at time of birth. They were allowed to graze in the morning with shepherd on daily basis and then to fodder crops like Lucerne, Jai, Jawar, Sarsoon, Bajra and Gawara available according to the sowing season. The forage species available for grazing were Tamarix aphylla, Cenchrus ciliaris, Suaeda fruticosa, Cymbopogon schoenanthus, Kochia indica, Capparis spinosa, Haloxylon salincornicum, Calligonam polygonoides, Capparis decidua and Haloxylon recurvum. Animals were offered concentrate (0.5-1 kg) according to availability on daily basis. Monthly live weight was monitored with digital weighing scale (Impressum, Pakistan).

Vaccination (ETV, CCPPV, PPR, Sheep Pox), deworming with oxfendazole, Albendazole, Oxyclozanide and injection of Ivermectin for controlling ticks were done every three months according to standard protocols.

MS, Male Suckler; FS, Female Suckler.

Tables I and II show single, twin and triple birth and weaning weights of cross breeds of Thalli × Thalli and Thalli × Mundri. Table III shows physical characteristics. The desirable expected results were attained successfully. The cross breeding is being widely used in the world for attaining different objectives depending upon the geographical region, preferences, need and economics such as quality of meat (Brzostowski et al., 1997; Leymaster, 2002; Gebreyowhens et al., 2017; Wilkes et al., 2017) for wool traits (Malik and Singh, 2006; Farahvash et al., 2011; Li et al., 2016), the fertility of ewes, survival rates and growth performance of lambs (Ceyhan et al., 2011; Issakowicz et al., 2018).

Gavojdiana et al. (2013) reported improved performance of Zackel sheep through cross-breeding with prolific Blue-faced Leicester. Dvalishvili et al. (2015) reported that the crossbred Romanov male lambs (7/8 Romanov:1/8 Argali) had 4.80 kg more body weight and 19 g of average daily gain over the purebred ones. Crossbred Romanov lambs had higher lamb keeping index, growth performance, nutrient digestibility and better metabolic blood profile than purebred ones.

Caro-Petrovic et al. (2015) reported that success of crossing depends on the breeds used and the genetic distance among them, as well the combining ability of maternal and individual heterosis to make the proper choice of breeds employed in a crossing system. They further revealed that the genotype and crossing system have significant effect on body weight and average daily gain of lambs.

Sheep cross breeding can increase productivity in terms of live weight and improve adaptation to severe climates measured by reductions in weight loss during winter-spring in Mongolia (Wilkes et al., 2017), Kenya (Konig et al., 2017) and Ethiopia (Ayichew, 2019). These studies have shown that crossbreds outperformed their local contemporaries with better body weight, mean weaning weight and yearling weight compared to indigenous sheep breeds.

Turkyilmaz and Esenbuga (2019) have shown increased productivity of Morkaraman sheep through crossbreeding with prolific Romanov sheep under semi-intensive production systems and concluded that improving reproductive traits can have a bigger economic impact than merely improving growth rate. Since Romanov is a highly prolific and precocious breed, crossbreeding with the Morkaraman breed will improve reproduction traits in terms of the number of lambs born and weaned.

The objective of this study was to improve the productive and reproductive traits of Thalli and Mundri crosses and to decrease especially the ear length. The desired characteristics such as improvement in birth weights, weaning weights, twining and triplitting percentages, and decreased the ear size of the cross bred has been considerably achieved. Maximum birth weight was achieved as 6.5 kg in male flock and 5.5 kg in female flock. Ear size was decreased in length and was white in appearance, mouth was white just like Kajli sheep and weaning weight was 32 kg in females.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and kind support of the management of Camel Breeding and Research Station (CBRS) Rakh Mahni District Bhakkar, Punjab, Pakistan.

The authors have declared no conflict of interests.