Professional paper
BREEDING AND TECHNOLOGICAL POSSIBILITIES FOR IMPROVING THE PRODUCTION OF SHEEP MILK
Ivana Kuzmić
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Agronomski fakultet, Zavod za specijalno stočarstvo, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Zvonimir Prpić
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Agronomski fakultet, Zavod za specijalno stočarstvo, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Ivan Vnučec
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Agronomski fakultet, Zavod za specijalno stočarstvo, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Boro Mioč
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Agronomski fakultet, Zavod za specijalno stočarstvo, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Although sheep in Croatia are mainly grown for meat production (lamb meat), in the last two decades there is an increased interest in production (and processing) of sheep's milk. The production (breeding) goal in herds of dairy breeds of sheep, until recently, was only increasing the milk yield, possibly with culling sheep with an increased number of somatic cells in milk. In countries with developed dairy sheep farming, new breeding programs are applied, which, apart from using the appropriate genotype (breed), are based on the adjustment of the entire technology to main production goal, i.e. milk production. Sheep breeders tend to prepare ewes properly for mating and organize lambing at the end or at the beginning of the calendar year in order to prolong the duration of milk secretion period. In addition, young sheep (ewe lambs) are mated earlier in order to start producing milk as soon as possible. Sheep breeders are trying to prolong the milking period by early separation of lambs from does and feed them on milk replacer until weaning or slaughter. One of the reasons for which they do that is the lower price of milk replacers in relation to the whole sheep's milk and the fact that milk replacer-fed lambs have almost identical performance as full-fat sheep milk-fed ones. Besides selecting sires and ewes of better dairy traits, more farmers pay attention to the functional udder traits by selecting ewes respecting the udder morphology, i.e. udder suitability to machine milking which is directly related to the proper and efficient milking and, consequently, the health of the mammary gland and hygienic milk quality.
Keywords
mating; lambs; lactation; milk replacer; udder morphology
Hrčak ID:
183215
URI
Publication date:
16.6.2017.
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