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Focus
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| More Milk from Awassi Sheep |
Luis
Iniguez and Muhi El-Din Hilali
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Because of increasing demand and attractive prices, farmers are intensifying Awassi production systems and producing more milk and dairy products, such as cheese and yogurt. One problem is the lack of improved animals with a high productivity potential. Only a few breeding programs in the region address this issue. These include the Al Kraim breeding plan under the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture in Salamiah and the Ceylanpinar program of Turkey, which have been developing improved Awassi by selection. Turkish animals are larger and produce more milk than
Syrian Awassi, but the latter are better adapted to very dry areas.
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| Syrian Awassi (back) and Turkish Awassi (front) adult ewes. |
Seven years ago, ICARDA scientists began to experiment whether milk production from Awassi sheep could be increased, while retaining its hardiness and productivity.
Turkish Awassi (T) and Syrian Awassi (S) rams were mated to S ewes to produce, respectively, TxS and S ewes, while T ewes were mated to T rams to produce T ewes. Production assessments were conducted on the ewes resulting from these crosses.
Milk yield was recorded weekly during the milking period, starting immediately after weaning (day 56 after lambing) and ending when ewes produced less than 150 g of milk per day. Milk samples were analyzed for crude protein, fat and non-fat solids. The duration of lactation was also recorded.
The distribution of milk production and lactation period showed that a larger proportion of T ewes had higher milk yields and longer lactation periods, compared with TS and S ewes.
Average milk yields of S, TS and T ewes were respectively 77.8, 87.2 and 101.3 kg, lactation lengths were 97.4, 104.4 and 118.9 days. Thus, TS and T ewes had 12% and 30% higher milk yields, and 7% and 22% longer lactation period, respectively, than S ewes.
To improve milk yield, in 2003 and 2004, ewes that gave less than 70 kg of milk per milking period were culled from the flock. In 2005, ewes producing less than 100 kg were culled. Milk production from the resulting flock was substantially higher, and the lactation period longer. Milk yields in 2003 (base year), 2004 and 2005 were 84.3, 74.8 and 106.1 kg, respectively.
Considering the estimated flock yield average of the two years
(2004 and 2005) after culling (90.5 kg) or the yield for 2005 (106.1 kg) after two rounds of culling, the milk yield increase in the flock due to culling fluctuated between 7.3% and 26%, respectively. Thus, it would be expected that in a typical 50-milking-ewe flock, this would translate to 308 to 1090 kg of additional milk. If all the milk were sold as yogurt, this would be equivalent to US$185 to US$654. There would also be an additional increase of 9.4 kg per ewe due to the contribution of T, so that the aggregate value for this product would be between US$467 and US$936 per flock.
Implications
Turkish Awassi is an improved genotype with the potential to increase the productivity of Syrian ewes. This genotype could be the base for production improvement in areas where a stable supply of improved feed is available.
Production can also be substantially increased by culling low-producing ewes in the flock.
Farmers insist that their access to improved rams is limited, implying that the supply from centralized, government-owned programs is not sufficient to cope with demand.
ICARDA is developing a framework to integrate the information obtained into sustainable, participatory breeding plans with farmers that could link the culling of unproductive animals to a sustained breeding strategy designed to target market opportunities.
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| Luis Iniguez (l.iniguez@cgiar.org) is Senior Small-Ruminant Scientist; and Muhi El-Din Hilali is a Research Assistant at ICARDA. |
© 2008 International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
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