Original scientific paper
Exterior charachteristica of Pag sheep
Vesna Pavić
Boro Mioč
Zdravko Barać
Ivan Vnučec
Velimir Sušić
Neven Antunac
Dubravka Samardžija
Abstract
Department of Animal Science at the Faculty of Agronomy, University of Zagreb and Croatian Livestock Centre are conducting a project whose basic purpose is to determine genetic and exterior characteristics of Croatian autochthonous sheep breeds. For that purpose, the exterior of the Pag sheep was evaluated by a commission and body measurements were taken from 379 heads from 4 flocks. The flocks are owned by local people with long tradition in sheep breeding on the island of Pag. The sheep were of different age, sese and stature. After determining the age according to the teeth and sese by visual assessment, the following groups of sheep were formed: 1) ewe hoggets about 15 months old; 2) young sheep between 2 and 3.5 years old; 3) older than 3.5-year-old adult sheep; 4) adult rams. The mean height of crest of adult sheep was 56.14 cm, the length of the trunk 64.27 cm, the width of the chest was 17.11 cm, the depth of the chest 28.98 cm, the circumference of the chest was 83.26 cm, the circumference of the leg was 7.04 cm and the body weight was 43.05 kg. Ewe hoggets had 99.86% of adult sheep height of withers, 98.63% of adult sheep length of the trunk and 79.65% of their terminal body weight. It was determined that sex had a significant influence on trunk conformation and the rams were considerably bigger than ewes.
Keywords
Pag sheep; exterior; trunk conformation; body measurements
Hrčak ID:
1948
URI
Publication date:
3.5.2005.
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