engleski

Milk production and quality of some Croatian sheep breeds

For the past ten years the production and processing of sheep milk in Croatia has been growing. During the year 2005, 1.808, 478 kg of sheep milk have been purchased and processed. Sheep milk in Croatia is mainly produced by autochthonous sheep breeds and their crosses (located in the Adriatic coastal area), and recently by East Friesian sheep (EF), located in continental area. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of the breed (genotype) on lactation length, lactation milk yield, fat and protein yield. The data relating to the milking ability controls of 1544 ewes (336 indigenous Istrian sheep, 677 indigenous Pag sheep, 444 EF sheep and 87 crosses EF x Awassi x Istrian sheep) were used for this research. The EF and crosses had approximately the same values for lactation milk yield, the lactation period, the milking and the suckling periods (289.91 vs. 289.03 kg, 195 vs. 186 days, 136 vs. 133 days and 59 vs. 53 days, respectively). The Pag sheep had the lowest lactation milk yield (143.28 kg) and the shortest suckling period (31 days). Their lambs suckled the lowest quantity of milk during the suckling period (28.67 kg, i.e. 20%), while the EF and crosses’ lambs suckled the greatest quantity of milk (95.67 kg, i.e.32.9% vs. 93.17 kg, i.e. 32.2%). Also, the Pag sheep produced milk with the highest average fat and protein content (7.73 and 6.19%, respectively) at a milk yield of 0.87 kg per day. However, during the lactation period, the crosses produced the highest quantity of milk fat (11.91 kg) and the EF sheep produced the highest quantity of proteins (9.87 kg). These results suggest that EF and Awassi sheep can be used to upgrade the indigenous sheep breeds for increased milk production, especially in areas with higher herbage availability.

breed; sheep milk; lactation; milk fat; proteins

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