First, to identify the confounding factors to be further analyzed (14), a log-linear model considered 5 factors, including flock size (number of ewes), production type, intensification level of the flock production as potential confounding factors, flock status, and strata.
Another possibility is the economic benefit, as it seems that keeping mature ewe for production of offspring is more profitable for shepherds than selling them in the market as this may decrease the production capacity of their flocks.
These results showed no consistent association of the ZNF389 deletion variant with ewe lifetime production.
Results showed that inclusion of EO increased milk production per ewe, the effect being dose dependent [1.565, 1.681, 1.876, and 2.119 L/d (standard error of the difference ± 0.176) for the control, 50, 100, and 150 mg of EO/kg of concentrate diets, respectively], and thus improved feed utilization.
Extended lactation deals with the ability of the ewe to sustain milk production beyond a certain time.
Ewe studies on lifetime lamb production put into context cumulated kid production of the current goat study because comparable lifetime goat observations are not readily available in the scientific literature.
There has been ample research done on longevity and lifetime performance comparing ewes breeds for lamb production.
The objective is to obtain a nucleus consisting of 50% heterozygous ewes (designated L+) and 50% homozygous wild-type ewes (designated ++), and to minimize the production of homozygous mutant ewes (designated LL).
Results of the restricted likelihood ratio tests did not highlight any significant interactions between the genotype of the lambs and milk production of the ewe.
The interaction between genotype of the lamb and milk production of the ewe was tested by comparing the previous recursive reaction norm model to a model that ignores the term u slope x MILK (recursive intercept model), using the restricted likelihood ratio test (RLRT = -2logLintercept_model + 2logLreaction_norm_model, where logLx is the logarithm of the restricted maximum likelihood of model x),.
