Growth characteristics to evaluate the wool sheep performance at cross-breeding

Abstract

In order to study productive and reproductive performance of crossbred sheep, data from the sheep recording of the ovine cattle from Paulista State University, FCAV/Unesp, Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil were used. The record data came from 312 sheep (129 of Polwarth breed, 44 1/2 Ile de France 1/2 Polwarth, 98 3/4 Ile de France 1/4 Polwarth and 41 7/8 Ile de France 1/8 Polwarth) submitted to absorber cross-breeding for Ile de France. Productive characteristic analysis: body weight at birth, body weight at weaning, body weight with 180 days, daily weight gain average and necessary period for animals to get 32kg of body weight were carried out at SAS statistical analysis (1996). No significant alterations were observed among the genotypes for the productive characteristics body weight at birth, body weight at weaning and necessary period for animals to get 32kg of body weight with mean values of 3,08, 15, 67kg and 270,75 days, respectively. For the characteristics daily weight gain average and weight with 180 days, there was significant effect for the genotype 7/8 Ile de France 1/8 Ideal with values of 0,214 and 40,53kg, respectively. The type of cross-breeding used gives the possibility for the next generation to have satisfactory productive characteristics for meat production, as the females of this cross-bred can increase the productive characteristics of their descendents.