Published in Scientific Papers. Series D. Animal Science, Vol. LXVII, Issue 2
Written by Genoveva STAYKOVA, Margarit ILIEV, Todor TSONEV
The subject of the study were 617 sheep from the Northeast Bulgarian Fine-Fleece Sheep Breed (NBFF) - Shumen inter-breed type, born from 2013 to 2018 and bred in the Scientific Center for Agriculture - Targovishte. The biological prolificacy trait at different ages has been investigated. There were 1839 observations of biological prolificacy from the first to the fifth lambing. The influence of the factors - breeding line, type of mating and year of birth was researched. The variance was analyzed on the basis of a multifactorial linear statistical model for each study age (consecutive lambing). The linear affiliation has a significant effect on biological prolificacy up to the third lambing. The type of mating has a significant effect on biological prolificacy at first lambing only. Sheep from the line No. 61 with FecB gene from Booroola Merino are superior in prolificacy the purebred and the lines with Australian Merino genes up to 4.5 years. The biological prolificacy increaseed by the second lambing and was highest at 3.5 years (117%).
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