Adaptive abilities of sheep of the Artlukh merino breed

Abstract

The Artlukh merino breed of sheep was bred by crossing ewes of Dagestan mountain breed with breeders of two merino breeds - Stavropolsky merino in the initial stage, and at the final stage - Mmanychsky merino. The article describes the productive and adaptive qualities of sheep of the Artlukh merino breed, bred for the mining and distilling system of maintenance in the Republic of Dagestan. The new merino breed of sheep was originally developed for breeding in the foothill zone of the republic, in which the height of alpine pastures does not exceed 1800 m above sea level. In the course of subsequent studies, it was established that the sheep of the new merino breed successfully adapted to the conditions of the high-altitude zone, where summer alpine pastures are located at an altitude of up to 2800 meters above sea level. Thus, the high plasticity of sheep of the new breed has been established, that is, their ability to adapt to difficult naturally climatic conditions and produce their characteristic productivity. The live weight of experienced sheep bred in the high-altitude zone is higher by 1 kg or 1.9%, in bright by 2.0 kg or 4.4% than in peers bred in the foothill zone. The shearing of the washed wool of young sheep reared in the conditions of the high-altitude zone at the level of 1.7 - 1.9 kg, which is at the level of parameters provided for by the minimum requirements for this sex and age group of sheep of the Artlukh merino breed. The tonin of wool fibers of young merino sheep bred in the foothill and high-altitude zones is 22.1-22.5 for the sheep, 21.0 microns for the yoke; the length (natural) for the sheep is 10.4 and 10.6; for the yoke – 10.2 and 10.8 cm, that is within the breed standard. The safety of young sheep for the chop and at the end of the year, respectively, 98 and 96%, that is quite satisfactory.