Characterization of breeding dairy cattle systems from the Mediterranean basin was conducted on 16 farms in the north center region of Algeria through a survey. Results are highly variable both structurally and in techno- economic management terms. The principal component analysis and clusters analysis have identified four groups of farms that differ in feeding strategies. The first group contains four farms that promote the use of forages (61.8% of the total dry matter (DM) intake). The costs are above the general averages (cost of production: 38.4 DA / liter ? 0.34 ? and cost of food in total production costs = 71.8%). The average annual productivity is about 4328.6 kg. Five farms of group 2 are characterized by milk yields below average (4146.5 kg). The concentrates represent only 39.3% of total DM intake. The cost of production (37.1 DA ? 0.33 ?/ liter of milk) and food costs are the lowest (65.17% of total production costs). The third group contains 5 farms dominated by profitable farms (4833.4 kg) and the lower cost of production (35.2 DA ? 0.31 ?). A relatively high proportion of DM is provided by forages (53.6%). Food accounts for 69.2% of the total production cost. The fourth group consists of two farms whose main characteristic is the total absence of forage production. This is associated with a significant contribution of concentrates in the global feed balance (48.8% of total DM intake). These concentrated foods were poorly converted into milk as recorded yields are the lowest (3561.2 kg). Production costs are highest (45.1 DA ? 0.40 ?) and relation price of food/total cost of production is very high (79.3%). So there are areas for improvement via land restructuring and the adoption of healthy feeding practices in order to ensure the profitability and sustainability of farms identified in this study.

This study is the first to use the Welfare Quality Assessment Protocol (WQ® AP)

This study has shown the ability of cows raised in a Mediterranean climate to cope with different levels of water restriction and thus reach a new equilibrium. As result, the important role of water as a limiting factor for livestock in environments with low water availability.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the growth performances and some genetic parameters of a synthetic rabbit strain over 3 successive generations (G4, G5 and G6), resulted from crossing between the local population and the INRA2666 Strain (France).The results indicated that all the growth indicators (average live weights at birth, weaning and slaughter, average daily gain in pre-weaning and post-weaning) show overall better performance levels than those observed by Several authors for the local population. The crossing thus effectively improved the average daily gain and reduced the slaughter age by two weeks. The study of correlations between growth criteria showed that early selection of weight and average daily gain is effective but that direct selection on average daily gain may also improve the weight by indirect or correlative effect. Finally, the kinetics of genetic progress indicates a fluctuation in genetic progress from one generation to another, which proves that this synthetic strain benefited from the complementarity effect without having undergone a selection on the growth criteria.