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Effect of Short-term Mineral Oil Treatment on Reproductive Performance of Sheep and Goat
Dissertation Abstract:
First hand information on litter size and related reproductive parameters in ewes and does were gathered under field conditions. A series of experiments were conducted to determine the effect of short-term mineral oil treatment on the concentrations of peripheral serum progesterone and liver cytochrome P-450, ovulation rate, and litter size in indigenous sheep and goat.
Litter size, interval between births, gestation, postpartum successful mating, and seasonal mortalities were assessed out of 167 kiddings and 355 lambing records of indigenous ewes and goat herds in commercial size operations.
In Study II, three representative does from each group (A= control; B= mineral oil) were treated daily with I 0 ml of either plain water (A) or mineral oil (B) initiated on day II until the onset of estrus following PGF2 alpha treatment given on day 16. Animals were slaughtered during estrus for cytochrome P-450 quantification. In a follow up study, 26 does were randomly assigned to same groupings (A & B). Serum progesterone concentrations were quantified on samples collected on day 15 or after tive days of treatment.
In Study Ill, 24 cyclic indigenous does and 12 ewes were randomly assigned by species into treatments A and B. Ewes were subjected to change over design with two cycles intervening between periods. Oral daily doses (10 ml for goat; 15 ml for ewe of either treatment) were given for 10 days, initiated on day II in does and day 7 in ewes.
On the 7th day of treatment. PGF2 alpha was administered to all animals. Laparotomy was done three days after estrus to determine ovulation rate and related parameters.
The last study involved 40 does and 61 ewes randomly distributed into treatments A and B. Oral daily doses (10 mllhead for goat; 15 ml/head for ewes of either treatment) were given for 10 days before breeding. Litter sizes and birth weights after treatments were assessed.
Indigenous ewes herd had mean litter size of 1.05 ± 0.21 while purebred and grade does had 1.43 ± 0.3 I and 1.15 ± 0.35, respectively. Gestation period for ewes was 149.47 ± 2.43 days while for does, it was 148 ± 3.27 days. The postpartum successful mating in ewe was 76.93 ± 41.34 days and the institutional herd of goats showed a mean postpartum successful mating of 184.40 ± 49.08 days. Lambing interval under year round mating were 219.0 ± 21.2 days while kidding interval under controlled mating was 345.1 ± 10.3 and 34 7 ± 18.8 days for the purebred and grades, respectively. Uncontrolled mating system resulted in high Jamb mortality (25%) during the rainy months.
In Study II, short-term mineral treatment resulted in significantly higher liver cytochrome P-450 concentrations but lower peripheral serum progesterone levels than the control.
The average ovulation rate of control and treated does were 1.25 ± 0.43 and 1.72 ± 0.44, respectively, while the mean ovulation rate in ewes were 1.25 ± 0.43 and 1.83 ± 0.3 7 for the control and treated groups, respectively. Mineral oil treatment increased the average ovulation rate of does (46.4%) and ewes (37.6%).
The last study indicated that litter size in does treated with mineral oil was significantly higher than the control animals (1.411 ± 0.49 vs. 1.08 ± 0.21). In ewes, however, mean litter size was not statistically affected by mineral oil treatment (1.05 ± 0.22 vs. 1.0 ± 0.0).
