Research on the improvement of the meat production in the Romanian Teleorman Black Head sheep by crossing with meat breeds

In Romania the main direction of sheep breeding was until two decades ago, wool production, while the milk and meat productions were left in the background. After the 1990s, particularly after the accession of Romania to the European Union, sheep production redirected toward milk and meat production focusing on the identification of the most adequate techniques to increase these productions. One solution to restore this sector is to produce suckling lambs or fat lambs, competitive on the foreign markets. Within this context, the objective of our paper, part of a larger program, is to use industrial crosses to improve meat production in the local sheep breeds. We present here the results of crossing the local Teleorman Black Head (TBH) with imported meat rams: Suffolk and German Black Head (GBH). The studies monitored the performance of the (milk) hybrids F1 compared to the local breed lambs. 60 lambs assigned to three groups (20 lambs per group) were weaned at 2 months, when control slaughtering was used to determine: the slaughter house and commercial yield, proportion of carcass parts, proportion of butchery parts, meat to bone ratio for each part, carcass measurements, chemical composition of the meat, fatty acids and cholesterol included. At birth, the local breed lambs had 4.77 kg and a gain of 0.253 kg and reached 18.31 kg at slaughter. GBH hybrids lambs weighed 4.76 kg at birth, a gain of 0.277 kg and reached 20.63 kg at slaughter; Suffolk hybrids lambs weighed 5.36 kg at birth, 0.322 kg daily weight gain and 24.92 kg at 2 months. The slaughterhouse yield, the meat to bone ratio and carcass dimensions were better in the hybrids than in the local breed. The Suffolk and German Black Head rams transmitted to their progeny a higher speed of growth, a conformation specific to the meat breeds and a better dressing in muscles, a higher slaughter yield and a better meat to bone ration than the local breed lambs.