Maataloustieteellinen A ikakauskirja Vol. 60: 534—537, 1988 Meat, wool and milk utilization together with comparison of F, coming from Finnsheep rams with F, coming from other prolific breeds R. NIZNIKOWSKI, Z.J. TYSZKA and W. JANIKOWSKI Warsaw Agricultural University (SSGGW-AR), 26/30 Rakowiecka st., 02-528 Warsaw, Poland Abstract. The effect of crossing of Polish Corriedale (C) sheep with East Friesian, Finn- sheep (F), and Polish Heath sheep was analyzed. The utility of F, crossbreds coming from C and prolific breed rams (given above) was confirmed. The F, crosses of C ewes and F rams were characterized by the best reproductive performance, high level of milk production and the small decrease of wool quality and quantity produced by the ewes, and good carcase quali- ty of ram lambs. Index words: Finnsheep, Polish Corriedale, East Friesian, Polish Heath, crossbreeding, reproduction, wool produc- tion, milk yield, fleece, carcass Introduction To increase fat lamb production breeders are forced to use radical methods, from which, crossing with prolific breeds seems to be the most effective. In Poland many authors have evaluated the usefulness of East Friesi- an (EF) sheep and Finnsheep (F) in commer- cial crossing (2, 3,1, 4,6, 7,8, 11), taking into account, mainly, reproductive traits and wool productivity of the progeny. Because of that an attempt was made to compare Cor- riedale type sheep (C) and its F, crosses with EF (C x EF), F (CxF) and Polish Heath (Wrzosowka = W), which had not been used before (CxW), according to reproductive traits, milking ability, wool productivity and slaughter value. Material and methods The experiments were carried out at the Warsaw Agricultural University Experimen- tal Station in Mianow on the ewes and ram lambs, kept all the time in the barns, ration- ally fed, according to the norms (10). The reproductive parameters were evaluated on 640 ewes (in the years 1985—1987) at the age of 2—6 years. The following parameters were evaluated: fecundity, prolificacy, number of weaned lambs, and number of lambs weaned per ewe joined to the ram. Differences among the experimental groups were evaluated using X 2 test. The milking parameters were evaluated on 135 ewes (in the years 1985—1986) at the age of 2, 3 and 4 years, which had 1 or 2 lambs 534 JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN FINLAND each, during 12 weeks lactation period. Ewes were mechanically milked once a week after 6 hours secretion of milk and the injection of 5 IU of oxytocine. The following parameters were measured: milk yield, fat, protein, and lactose content using the Milko-Scan appara- tus. The influence of the ewe genotype on the milking parameters was tested by an analysis of variance (5), taking into account also fol- lowing sources of variability: year of experi- ment, number of lactation, week of lactation, number of suckling lambs and interactions: genotype x year of experiment, genotype x week of lactation, genotype x number of suck- ling lambs, week of lactation x number of suckling lambs. The fleece weight was evaluated on 175 ewes at the age of 2 years (in the years 1982—1983). The fleece weight and clean wool weight were a basis of the evaluation, but fibre thickness was also measured. According to first 2 parameters the influence of the genotype on them was analyzed by the analysis of variance (5), taking into account (in the model) also a year of experiment and an interaction geno- type x year of experiments. The slaughter analyses of fat lambs were made on 82 ram lambs in the years 1985— 1987. Animals were slaughtered at 40 kg of live weight and then carcasses were analyzed according to Nawara et al. method (7). To analyze the genotype influence on the slaugh- ter parameters the analysis of variance was made (5), also taking into account year of ex- periment, type of birth (single, twins etc.) and interactions: genotype x year of experiment, genotype x type of birth year of experiment x type of birth. According to the milking parameters, fleece weight and slaughter quality, when the geno- type influence was found, differences among the experimental groups were evaluated by the Duncan test. Results Results of the experiments and the number of animals in every experimental group are in table 1. According to reproductive parameters, high level of fecundity was confirmed. The F, crosses with prolific rams were characterized by the highest level of that parameter in com- parison to C, but the differences were not sig- nificant. The highest prolificacy was observed in the C X F group. The differences were high- ly significant in comparison with C and C x EF and significant with CxW. The lowest prolificacy was observed in C group. The crosses C x EF and CxW had medium values, and did not differ statistically between them- selves. The number of weaned lambs, even though not confirmed statistically, decreased in every F, cross group in comparison to C. The number of weaned lambs per ewe joined to the ram increased in F, cross groups in comparison to C. The highest level of that parameter was observed in CxF group. According to milking parameters, the highest milk yield was observed in the C x EF and CxF groups in comparison to other groups, among which CxW group produced the lowest quantity of milk. The analysis of fat content in the milk showed that all dif- ferences among the groups were significant and its level from the highest to the lowest was following: CxF, C, CxW and CxEF. The protein content in the milk showed the differ- ences among CxF and CxW groups, rest of the groups differed statistically highly signifi- cantly. The highest fat content was observed in CxF, then C and CxW groups, and the lowest was observed in CxEF group. There were no differences among the groups according to the lactose content. The analysis of wool productivity showed that the C ewes had the highest fleece weight and the ewes of C x W had the lowest. These groups differed with high statistical sig- nificance in comparison to the other groups. The CxEF and CxF crosses did not differ and had medium values of that parameter in 535 536 Table 1. Reproduction parameters, milking parameters and wool productivity of C, F,C x EF, F,C xF, F,C xW, TRAITS C F,CxEF F,CxF F,CxW (A) (B) (Q (D) 1. Reproductive, n 342 107 90 101 a) fecundity (%) 96 98 99 98 b) prolificacy 126 BCD 145 AC 184 ABd 155 Ac c) number of weaned lambs (%) 91 86 85 86 d) number of weaned lambs per ewe joined to the ram 110 121 156 131 2. Milking parameters, n 46 42 23 24 a) milk production (ml) LSM 301 BCD 370 AD 356 AD 269 ABC S 6 8 13 11 b) fat content (%) ISM 6.24 BCD 5.41 ACD 6.57 ABD 5.89 ABC S 0.07 0.07 0.14 0.11 c) protein content (%) LSM 4.29 BCD 4.13 ACD 4.48 ABd 4.40 ABc S 0.03 0.04 0.06 0.05 d) lactose content (%) LSM 5.28 5.43 5.27 5.35 S 0.07 0.08 0.13 0.11 3. Wool productivity, n 57 44 32 42 a) fleece weight (kg) LSM 6.49 BCD 4.38 AD 4.26 AD 3.69 ABC S 0.40 0.19 0.23 0.24 b) clean wool weight (kg) LSM 3.73 BCD 2.52 AD 2.32 A 2.17 AB S 0.26 0.13 0.15 0.16 c) fibre thickness 58/56's 56/50's 56/50's 50/48's 4. Slaughter quality, n 21 20 20 21 a) age at the slaughter (days) LSM 196 d 178 D 196 d 221 aBC S 8 9 9 8 b) »eye» muscle area (mm 2 ) LSM 11.80 12.43 c 11.20 b 11.96 S 0.41 0.42 0.43 0.39 c) fat thickness over the »eye» muscle LSM 1.18 BD 0.53 AC 0.97 B 0.78 A S 0.11 0.12 0.12 0.11 d) dressing percentage (%) LSM 41.13 c 41.01 c 42.74 ab 42.18 S 0.56 0.57 0.53 0.53 e) content of valuable cuts (loin + leg + best end of neck) (%) LSM 43.02 D 43.06 D 43.43 D 41.19 ABC S 0.33 0.33 0.48 0.35 A,...,D P