Growth, Reproductive, and Survival Performance of Dorper Crossbreds

This growth performance evaluation on local sheep and their crosses with Dorper reveal that the crossbred lambs grow faster than the local sheep lambs. Crossbred lambs also have higher pre-weaning and post-weaning growth rates than local sheep lambs. The crossbred lambs are generally heavier, grow faster, large body-sized and have good body conformation when compared with the local sheep. The crossbred ewes had a longer lambing interval than local ewes but were found comparable in their litter size. There was also no significant difference in mortality rates between the two breeds. The 25% crossbred lambs gained high acceptance and demand in the local market at a high price from producers and buyers because of their fast growth and phenotypic resemblance to local sheep. Therefore, the high growth performance of the crossbred lambs shows the possibility of using Dorper sheep as a terminal sire to improve the productivity of the local sheep through cross-breeding.