Pregnancy Diagnosis in Small Ruminants: An Overview
2011
Small ruminants form an integral part of rural economy especially in the arid, semi-arid and hilly regions of the country through milk, meat, wool and skin besides serving as a source of sustenance to small and marginal farmers. Like others species, productive potential of small ruminants is greatly affected by reproductive management. An early diagnosis of pregnancy is needed for improving reproductive efficiency and maintaining cost-effective production. A wide variety of methods have been employed for pregnancy diagnosis in these animals. Some are applicable at the field or farm level while others are restricted to the laboratory only. Pregnancy diagnosis procedures based on laparoscopy, laparotomy, vaginal cytology and radiography although reliable are limited to the laboratory because of infrastructure and cost involvement. Non-return to estrus is still the easiest and cheapest method applicable at field and farm level. Techniques like detection of pregnancy associated glycoproteins and real-time B-mode ultrasonography have a high degree of accuracy and are, thus, likely to be more commonly used in future. The present overview gives a comparative evaluation of different procedures of pregnancy diagnosis in small ruminants.
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