GROWTH RATE AND SLOUGHTER ANALYSIS IN LAMBS FROM THE BULGARIAN DAIRY SYNTHETIC POPULATION AND ITS F1 - CROSSES WITH THE BREEDS CHIOS AND LACAUNE

Neviana Stancheva, Genoveva Staikova

Abstract: In Agricultural Institute - Shumen was initiated a study on the fattening efficiency of lambs from the Bulgarian Dairy Synthetic Population (BDSP) and its crosses with Chios and Lacaune. Accordingly, a field trial on three groups of lambs was carried out under the following scheme: group I - 12 purebred BDSP
lambs; group II - 7 half-blooded BDSP-Chios crosses; and group III - 12 half-blooded BDSP-Lacaune crosses. The study established that the purebred BDSP lambs have by 1.90 and 3.38% higher growth rate compared to the Chios and Lacaune F1-crosses respectively, and reach 28 kg of pre-slaughter live weight two days faster. The Lacaune crosses show by 3.66 and 4.66% higher consumption of foodunits and by 18.3 and 17.7% lower consumption of crude protein per 1 kg of live growth compared to the purebreds and the half-Chios lambs. The BDSP-Chios crosses demonstrate superiority over the purebred and half-Lacaune lambs in cooled
carcass weight, dressing percentage, and carcass meat proportion by respectively 0.78% and 0.92%, 0.42% and 1.26%, and 0.84% and 2.57%.

Keywords: crosses; dairy sheep breeds; growth rate

Date published: 2023-02-21