Evaluation of growth performance and carcass characteristics in purebred Kurdi and Kurdi × Romanov lambs

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of crossbreeding on growth performance and carcass composition of purebred and crossbred Kurdilambs. Thus, two genetic groups including purebred Kurdi lambs (KK) and crossbred Kurdi*Romanov lambs (KR) were used. For analysis of carcasstraits, six lambs from each group were selected and slaughtered. The number of weaned lambs for KK and KR were 95 and 45, respectively. Ourresults indicated thatKK purebred lambs had the highest (4.5 kg) and KR crossbred lambs had the lowest (4.1 kg) birth weight (P < 0.05). CrossbredKurdi*Romanov lambs had higher average daily gain than KK purebred lambs (P < 0.05). The means of final weights of purebred lambs weresignificantly higher than crossbred lambs (54.8 vs. 41.5 kg, respectively). The genetic groups had no significant effect on cold and hot carcass weights.The effect of crossbreeding on fat thickness, fat-tail and leg was significant (P < 0.05). Crossbred lambs performed better than purebred lambs in thepre-weaning period, but purebred Kurdi lambs performed better than crossbred lambs in the fattening period. In general, it can be reported that thecrossbreeding of Kurdi sheep with Romanov sheep did not show the desireble results.