Review article

FACTORS AFFECTING VARIABILITY OF UDDER MORPHOLOGY TRAITS OF SHEEP

Zoran Prpić orcid.org/0000-0003-0827-4594 ; Agronomski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Boro Mioč ; Agronomski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Ivan Vnučec ; Agronomski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Vesna Pavić ; Agronomski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Miljenko Konjačić ; Agronomski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska

Abstract

Until recently, selection of dairy sheep breeds was focused almost exclusively on increasing the amount of milk produced and so today they produce several times more milk than breeds selected for meat and wool. However, due to the permanent striving for increasing sheep milk production udder weight becomes too great, and suspensory system can not withstand this overweight so it ruptures more often. That significantly shortens the duration of animal’s production life and adversely affects udder suitability for machine milking. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in adding a so-called functional udder traits in sheep breeding programs recently, such as udder morphology, with the aim of increasing the biological and economic efficiency of milk production, not by increasing production, but reducing its costs. The economic importance of sheep udder morphology has lately been more pronounced also in Croatia because in more and more herds machine milking starts to apply. Therefore, the aim of this study was to show the most important factors that affect the variability of sheep udder morphology.

Keywords

ewe milk; mammary gland; milking; breed; lactation period

Hrčak ID:

97641

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/97641

Publication date:

4.2.2013.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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