Breeding indigenous cows to terminal sires may facilitate production of calves in the emerging sector that better meet commercial feedlot requirements. Thus, the objective of this research was to develop breeding objectives for Angus and Charolais terminal sires to be…
Data on linear body measurements (LBM) of ca. 100 Zulu sheep raised under extensive management systems at four sites in northern KwaZulu-Natal were collected over a period of 2.5 years (October 2000 to May 2003). Data were used to quantify…
The objective of this work was to estimate and compare the growth curve parameters for live weight of indigenous Venda and Naked Neck chickens and carry out some analyses to test the existence of differences in the growth pattern between…
The aim of the study was to characterize the polymorphism of the Calpastatin (CAST) gene identified with three restriction enzymes (TaqI, HinfI, MspI) in Meishan and five other pig populations, and to provide information on their potential in marker-assisted selection…
The objective of this study was to establish a fine woolled Merino flock at the Grootfontein Agricultural Development Institute in order to evaluate the production and reproduction performance of fine woolled animals against a control line on natural pastures in…
An 80-day feeding trial was conducted as two experiments to evaluate the effects of replacement of fish meal (FM) and soyabean meal (SBM) protein with hazelnut meal (HM) protein in the diets of mirror carp (Cyprinus carpio) fingerlings. Growth parameters…
The development of low erucic acid, low glucosinolate cultivars of canola seed has led to the availability of a feed ingredient with considerable potential to replace soyabean meal in diets for all classes of farm animals. The sinapine and glucosinolate…
The performance of two fat-tailed sheep breeds, Chaal and Zandi, and their F1 and R1 crossbred lambsfrom a lean-tailed breed, Zel, was compared. The weaned lambs from the Chaal and Zandi groups were finished over periods of 105 and 90…
Several layers of cumulus cells surround the oocyte in the antral ovarian follicle throughout the follicular development until ovulation. The cumulus cells play an important supportive and regulative role in oocyte development and maturation via intercellular communications between oocytes and…
The present study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary metabolisable energy (ME) density and L-carnitine supplementation on the performance, carcass traits and blood parameters of broiler chickens. The experiment was designed with three levels of dietary energy (low,…
The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary oils on growth performance of broiler chicks vaccinated with La Sota vaccine against Newcastle disease. One hundred and seventy five 1-week old Ross PM3 male broiler chicks were…
The aim of the experiment was to determine the effect of feeding low (2.4 kg/d), medium (4.8 kg/d) and high (7.2 kg/d) levels of a barley-based concentrate on milk production and in sacco ruminal disappearance of dry matter (DM) and…
Rearing broilers on 6-h photoperiods and transferring them to 23 h at 21 d has been shown to reduce mortality and the incidence of leg disorders without adversely affecting final body weight or feed conversion efficiency. However, in many countries,…
The effect of tanniniferous browse meal on faecal egg counts (FEC) and intestinal worm burdens was investigated in sheep and goats infested experimentally with gastrointestinal nematodes. Initially, leaves of different browse tree species were assayed for condensed tannin (CT) content…
The purpose of this paper was to derive economic values for beef production, carcass quality and fitness traits for the Simmentaler breed in Southern Africa. Income was partitioned between weaners, surplus heifers and cull cows. Expenses were calculated for all…
The development of economic selection indices for an integrated Simmentaler production system was described. The breeding objective was defined in terms of production-, functional- and product quality traits. Criteria included in the total index were birth- and weaning weight (direct…
The data used for this study were collected on 16 644 kids born between 2000 and 2004 in 12 different Angora goat studs representing different management systems. Body weight and growth rate of kids from birth to 16 months of…
Simmentaler cross (SX), Bonsmara cross (BX) and Nguni (NG) steers were raised on natural sweet veld pastures and slaughtered at 18 or 30 months of age. Slaughtering occurred at the end of the wet summer season. Live weight and carcass…
Genetic diversity in candidate genes for fitness and production traits was explored in three populations of dairy cattle. The study focused on adipokines, including leptin (LEP), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF), interleukin-8 (IL8) and interleukin-10 (IL10) as candidate genes. The…
A study was conducted to determine the effect of supplementing the diet of breeder hens with a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) premix, containing 509 g fatty acid salts/kg of which 285 g were calcium butyrate, on their eggshell characteristics and…
