Growth, carcass and meat performance in goat and sheep breeds and their crosses

The growth performance, carcass and meat properties are the driving factors for efficiency and overall viability of goat and sheep meat production systems. These performance factors are much dependent on genotype, although the overall productive capacity will be influenced by other factors such as nutrition, management, health and other animal related factors as age, slaughter weight and sex. Goats and sheep breeds are diverse and populated all around the worlds’ agro ecological regions culminating in distinctive performances. Some agro ecological regions usually use both pure breeds and assorted crossbred goats and sheep that include characteristics from more than one breed, which might be locally available or exotic breeds. Breed differences in performance characteristics proffer contingency to improved efficiency of goat and sheep meat production as a consequence of growth, carcass and meat performance. Different production systems have taken advantage of various goats and sheep breeds and their crosses for meat production and have designed their management specifically to maximize production on targeted breeds. Pure breeding and crossbreeding have been the most used mode of production to promote growth performance, carcass and meat parameters to serve specific commercial meat market expectations and consumer appeal. Straight breeding has its own share of benefits and shortcomings, on the other hand goat and sheep breed diversity and genetic distance have acted as valuable ingredient which has been exploited in crossbreeding systems in improving growth performance, carcass and meat parameters. Different forms of systematic crossing strategy to improve growth performance, carcass and meat production have been designed based on specialized terminal sires breeds to complement performance characteristics of known maternal breeds lines. In this case, appropriate choice of breed to attain optimal growth, carcass and meat parameters as expected by specific markets and meat products acceptable to consumers becomes critical. Unlike pure breeding accomplishment of breeds and their crosses utilization is dependent on their genetic distance among them, as well as breed complementarity, individual, maternal and paternal heterosis that make the proper choice of breeds employed in a crossing system of great importance. Therefore, it is recommendable for goat and sheep producers to acquaint themselves with the production potential of available goat and sheep genetic resources in order to get maximum meat production utility. The present review gives an insight on the performance of goat and sheep breeds and their crosses in terms of growth, carcass and meat production.

Keywords:

Growth , Carcass , Meat , Goat , Sheep , Breeds