Industry News
Maremmas as Flock Guardians
The nature of sheep farming (on open moorland) and public rights of access mean that the Maremma is rarely, if ever, used as a livestock guardian in the UK. However, the breed is still used for flock guarding in Italy and has been introduced with success as a livestock guard to the United States and to Australia.
The Coppingers brought Maremmas from Italy, two from working Abruzzi stock and two from Delle Grandes Murailles lines, for their Livestock Guarding Dog Project. Sommerville Sheep farms took stock from the UK (summer, Window and Abruzzi lines) with the aim of establishing a pair of Maremma guardians on each of their fifteen sheep stations in the US. In Australia, Peter and Gladys Cookson imported a bitch in whelp from the Roes in the UK (Sunshoo) and puppies from this litter established themselves successfully as livestock protectors.
Maremmas today guard a whole range of livestock including sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens and llamas! They have proved themselves to be versatile and adaptable, and make loyal guardians and companion dogs. The true Maremma temperament is calm and courageous. There should be no tendency to nervousness or unprovoked aggression.
What is the Northern Maremma Association?
The Northern Maremma Association (NMA) was founded in the UK in 1985 to promote and protect the interests of the Maremma Sheepdog (Maremmano-Abruzze), an Italian flock-guardian which can trace its history back over 2000 years.
Membership is open to anyone who has a genuine interest in the breed. Since 1985, the club has endeavoured to encourage the breeding of sound, typical Maremmas by providing advice and information, organizing educational events and publishing literature. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sheep
There are a number of different theories regarding the origins of domestic sheep. However, most sources agree that they originated from mouflon. There are two wild populations of mouflons still in existence.
The Asiatic mouflon which is still found in the mountains of Asia Minor and southern Iran and the European mouflon of which the only existing members are on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Read the rest of this entry »
Funny animals – sheep shorn design
In one room of La Pampa in Argentina, an art group of the Southern Cone wanted to give an aesthetic touch to agriculture and at the same time, build a bridge to the countryside with his flock Project, which is designed shearing sheep.
The shearing is done manually; making the job of cutting the wool to form different patterns is clearly handmade. The designs are applied to animals are decided by the people of the village. Shearing is a rural practice from time immemorial and the Flock Project; it becomes an aesthetic and communicative practice. Read the rest of this entry »
Decoding the genome of horses
* An international team of scientists unable to decipher its genome
* Horses and humans are more genetically similar than those believed are
* The work will help find new therapies for multiple diseases
An international team of scientists has succeeded in sequencing the full genome of the domestic horse and discovered that there are significant genetic similarities between this species and humans, who can help improve the treatment of genetic diseases in horses, and in this relative biped with which it shares its evolutionary history. This finding has been published in ‘Science’ Read the rest of this entry »
The black sheep of the flock
However, for the sheep industry, the problem is the existence of recessive black allele of the ASIP gene, allele “no agouti” carrying the white sheep that can not be distinguished in the pack, leading to, but at low frequencies, born sheep with black cloak.
Researchers have identified the molecular mechanisms underlying white and black color in domestic sheep. To do this, have investigated the genetic architecture of the ASIP gene in several sheep breeds by sequencing the ASIP locus and measuring gene expression. Read the rest of this entry »
Future trends in domestic rice policy
Policy for guiding the development of grain markets means, in many factors, its role can be described as a top priority, the future trend of the domestic rice market policy will be mainly in the following areas:
First, the WTO countries supporting policy. China should make full use of “green box” policy, through financial grants to support research and development of high quality rice research and promotion, the establishment of high quality rice experiment station, as soon as possible so that the industrialization of high quality varieties, and thus to support the rice industry purposes. Read the rest of this entry »
You Want to Milk Sheep…
Before you spend your money getting into sheep dairying, you need to spend some time in the planning stages. You will need to put your goals on paper. By doing so, you should be able to determine if this is really what you want to do. You need to ask yourself if this will be a hobby or a business. How are you going to feed them, where are you going to house them, where and how are you going to milk them? Read the rest of this entry »
Quality Sheep Milk
The dairy sheep industry in the United States is in its youth, and some producers have had no experience with milking any other animals previous to entering this industry. Even producers who have milked animals before might feel a refresher course in milk quality would be helpful. Read the rest of this entry »
Baluchi
Also Known As: Baluchi dumda, Mengali, Taraki, Shinwari, Araghi, Farahani, Kermani, Khorasani, Khurasani, Naeini, Neini, Yazdi
The Baluchi originated in the area which is now southwest Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan.
The Baluchi sheep is a fat-tail breed well adapted to a wide range of harsh environmental conditions in eastern Iran, one of the arid subtropical areas of the world. The fleece is white with pigmented head and legs. The wool is coarse with modulation. Body size varies between 35 and 40 kg in adult ewes, milk yield between 40 and 50 Kg in a period of about 125 days and annual greasy fleece weight between 1.3 and 1.8 Kg. Yazdi et al (1997) analyzed traits of birth weight(BW), Weaning Weight(WW) ,Weight at six months(W6),Weight at twelve months(YW) , Pre-Weaning gain (W6) , Post-Weaning gain (PWG), lamb fleece weight(LFW), ewe fleece weight, Sheared before first mating ( Fw1) and adult ewe fleece weight( FW) . They used of records of 20,534 lambs in two flocks from 1966 to 1989. The results were similar in two flocks. The direct heritability for ram weight was moderate and varied from 0.13 to 0.32. and for WG and PWG varied from 0.12 to 0.19. Read the rest of this entry »