Preliminary Studies On Uncovering Of Sheep Resources In Sichuan Province

In this experiment,the sheep resources in Sichuan province was integrated and handled by collecting the exsisting literature and measuring the performance traits of Butuo Black Sheep and Jialuo Sheep which were discovered recently.The Mountains Tebetan Sheep,Liangshan Semi-fine-wool Sheep and the new sheep resource with pure black fur which is provisionally called Butuo Black Sheep are distributed over mountainous region in the southwest of Sichuan province;Plateau Tibetan Sheep,Valley Tibetan Sheep and the newfound Jialuo Sheep are distributed mainly throughout the western plateau area in Sichuan province.The research on the recently found resources in the two regions,Butuo Black Sheep and Jialuo Sheep,were quite few.We conducted the experiments severally so as to explore the production traits of two new resources,thus enriching the sheep repository in Sichuan province.5 Native sheep which is provisionally called Butuo Black Sheep and 5 Crossbred Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep(white sheep obtained by crossing Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep and native sheep),both were one year old,were selected randomly;their body sizes,slaughter performance,meat quality,amino acid,mineral composition and volatile compounds were contrastively analyzed.The results are as follows:1.The four indicators of Crossbred Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep which contains chest circumference,live weight before slaughter,carcass meat weight and GR value were significantly or extremely significantly higher than those of Butuo Black Sheep,with other indicators not significant.2.Fatty acids were maily composed of palmitic acid,palmitoleic acid,myristic acid,stearic acid,oleic acid,linolenic acid,arachidic acid and linoleic acid,in which linoleic acid was significantly higher(P<0.05) in Butuo Black Sheep than that in Crossbred Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep and others were not statistically different(P>0.05) between the two sheep resources.3.Amino acids and minerals in Crossbred Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep were abundant,of which the total ingredients were higher than Butuo Black Sheep;the histidine and lysine elements of Crossbred Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep have reached the ideal ratio of essential amino acids in protein, calcium and phosphorus ingredients of which were statistically higher than those of Butuo Black Sheep; while Butuo Black Sheep has a higher level of copper than Crossbred Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep.Constrastive analyses of body sizes,slaughter performance, amino acids and minerals,and volatile component in 5 Jialuo Sheep and 5 native sheep in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture both selected at random were conducted in order to explore the performance traits of Jialuo Sheep.The the results have shown that:indicators of chest depth,dressing percentage,pure meat percentage in Jialuo Sheep were inferior to those in native sheep significantly,while leather width indicator of Jialuo Sheep is statistically higher than that of native sheep,with other indicators not significantly different(P>0.05); compared with native sheep,Jialuo sheep has a lower ratio of 9 essential amino acids in mutton sample,while percentage of histidine in protein,with 2.44% in Jialuo Sheep and 2.4% in native sheep,was higher than or equal to essential amino acid in ideal protein; as for minerals,only the calcium content of Jialuo Sheep was significantly higher than that of native sheep(P<0.05),with other elements not statistically different(P>0.05).Sheep resources in Sichuan province generally have sound constitution,symmetry structure for adapting to local environment,and white clothing hair except that the newfound Jialuo Sheep have brown and white coat and Butuo Black Sheep have black coat. As for growth development,body size of Jialuo Sheep had a major dominance among native and cultivated sheep resources. With regard to breeding performance, Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep and introduced varieties are better,with the earliest puberty and sexual maturity in the introduced Hu sheep. In the aspect of meat performance, Jialuo Sheep was excellent in indicators of body weight before slaughter,carcass weight and dressing percentage,with the best dressing percentage in native sheep resources especially.In the case of the capability of wool production,Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep was quite fine,with clean yield of 67%;the wool length of Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep was inferior to that of Boioder Leicestier Sheep and Lincoln but superior to that of Romney Marsh,Corriedale,Xinjiang fine-fleece sheep and Tsigay sheep. The value for skin use was better in Plateau Tibetan Sheep,Hu sheep and Small-tail Han Sheep.In terms of physiological and biochemical indexes,there were no significant distinction in body temperature and pulse for Jialuo Sheep.Small-tail Han Sheep and Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep、while respiration rate of Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep was higher than that of the other two resources; globulin content in blood of Small-tail Han Sheep was higher than that of Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep; the amount of erythrocytes in blood of Romney Marsh exceeds that of Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep and Small-tail Han Sheep.while the leukocyte number and serum total protein content in Small-tail Han Sheep were the highest among the three sheep resources. In this experiment,several data of production traits in one year old Butuo Black Sheep and adult Jialuo Sheep were selected; at the same time,tasks of selecting performance traits data by gender and age and researching in gene and molecular level are conducted persistently;the scant information of introduced Liangshan Semi-fine-wool sheep and Tebetan Sheep in resource questionnaire will be filled and updated. Research on improving the questionnaire of sheep resources in Sichuan province will be continued by our research team since it’s the basic of building the Sichuan resource pool and important preparation for the uncovering,evaluation and utilization of sheep resources.