Preliminary Study Of The Production Performance Of Dairy Meade Sheep And Its Hybrid Offspring

The fast growth of goat milk product market in China boosts the development of the goat and sheep dairy industry.Introduction of foreign premium dairy sheep genetic materials and breeding new dairy sheep breeds which well adapt local environment and feed conditions is a feasible way for Inner Mongolia to develop its own sheep dairy industry.DairyMeade is a new dairy sheep breed which developed in New Zealand.Current study,which was based on the imported DairyMeade frozen embryos,examined the output of frozen embryo transfer,systematically measured the growth index of DairyMeade sheep and its hybrid offspring(DH-F1)with local breed Small Tail Han sheep(STH),preliminarily examined the basic nutrition components of sheep milk and the super-ovulation performance of DairyMeade sheep,and analyzed the frequency of MSTN gene g+6723G>A mutation in current DairyMeade flock.The major results were as follows: 1)206 lambs were born from 400 frozen embryos,with 63.1% pregnant rate and 57.9% lambing percentage;2)the body weights at born,1 month,3 months,6 months and 12 months of DairyMeade sheep were 6.13±0.69 kg,14.05±2.26,36.92±3.95,52.70±5.30 and 90.14±6.60 kg,respectively;3)the body weights at born,1 month,3 months,6 months and 12 months of DH-F1 sheep were 5.40±1.24 kg,14.55±2.01 kg、33.56±5.08 kg、40.45±6.15 和 79.19±10.69 kg,respectively;4)DH-F1 lambs at 6 months of age had29.24±2.71 kg of average carcass weight,52.1% of dressing percentage,and only0.28±0.10 kg of fat in the tail;5)the contents of fat,protein,casein and solids in sheep milk were significant higher than cow and goat milk;6)DairyMeade sheep had a good super-ovulation performance,with over 12 transferable embryos per donor;7)the frequency of homozygous mutation genotype of MSTN gene at g+6723G>A site was 75.3% in current DairyMeade flock.Current study provided the basic data and theoretical support for the fully utilizing of the DairyMeade sheep’s premium traits and breeding of a new dairy sheep breed of China.