PARTICULARITIES OF MILK PRODUCTION TO THE KARAKUL EWES

I. Buzu

Abstract
    The purpose of this scientific paper was to reveal the veritable biological particularities of the lactation curve to the Karakul ewes in similar feeding conditions, during the sensitive period of the first 3 months after calving. The research was carried out on Karakul ewes flocks of the "Kotovskii" sovkhoz, Causeni district, Republic of Moldova. Research has shown that the daily milk production of ewes, calved in January and maintained in the stable in relatively good feeding conditions, in the first 20 days after calving, was sufficient (0.98-0.96 kg/day), for the Karakul race. The increase in the body mass of a lamb in 20 days was 3.78-3.90 kg, or 189-195 g/day. The specific milk consumption at the formation of 1 kg of live mass increase of lambs in the first 20 days after birth was 5.18-4.92 kg. To the Karakul sheep, the daily milk production decreases, even from the first 10 days after calving, by 0.14 kg (from 1.05 kg every 10 days to 0.91 kg every 20 days), or by 13.3% (t_d = 2.8; P <0.01). With the aging of lambs after birth from 20 to 60 days, there is a sudden drop in the daily quantity of milk of ewes (from 0.96 to 0.39 kg), the daily increase in body mass of the lamb (from 195 to 112 g/day), as well as the specific consumption of milk at the formation of 1 kg of live mass increase of lamb (from 4.92 to 3.50 kg). The biological curve of lactation of Karakul ewes represents a slightly downward line (from 1.05 to 0.96 kg/day) in the first 20 days after calving, with a sudden drop (from 0.96 to 0.39 kg/day) at the 60-day interval and a slow decrease (from 0.390 to 0.209 kg/day) at the 139-day interval and until the end of lactation. The Asian Karakul sheep race is an aboriginal, rustic and highly conserved one from the physiological (genetic) point of view of the rather limited lactogenic potential. Between the quantity of milk sucked/milked on the control day and the quantity of milk, produced by Karakul ewes throughout lactation, there is a fairly close correlation at all control intervals (r_xy = 0.624 - 0.778). Based on the elucidated correlations, the sonication coefficients were deduced, which can be used to determine by rapid method the milk production of Karakul ewes, calved in the last decade of January.