Effect of non-genetic factors on birth weight in a population of Teleorman Black Head sheep breed

Abstract

Considering the increasing demand for sheep meat, it is necessary to optimize the breeding strategies and the management of sheep breeding in Romania in order to satisfy this demand by obtaining animals with high genetic potential in terms of body development traits. Knowing that some of the main factors such as sex, parity, type of birth are considered sources of variation of several growth-related traits within the sheep species, the aim of the present work was to determine the influence of these factors on the birth weight of a population of Teleorman Black Head sheep. In order to achieve the scope, the birth weight character of 732 lambs born in the 2021 lambing season was studied. The data obtained by weighing were statistically processed in Excel using the software 'Real statistics'. The sex ratio was 1:0.77, with 407 females and 316 males, which had an average birth weight of 4.053 ± 0.039 kg and 4.19 ± 0.044 kg, respectively. The results showed that birth weight was insignificantly influenced by sex (p>0.01), strongly influenced by parity (p<0.01) and strongly influenced by birth type (p<0.01).