Relationship between placental traits and maternal intrinsic factors in sheep

Poor placental traits reduce kid birth weight in young Saanen dams in the first parity

“…Echternkamp (27), Dwyer et al (9), and Konyali et al (23) reported similar findings for beef cattle, sheep, and goats. The positive correlation between BW and cotyledon numbers, total weights, and dimensions obtained in the present study are in agreement with past studies in beef cattle and sheep (9,22,27). Positive correlations were observed in the present study between PW and cotyledonal traits and dimensions, but there was a negative correlation in placental computations (PE, CE, and CD), supporting the findings reported by Ocak and Onder (24) and Ocak et al (4).…”

“…Previous studies reported that there was no significant correlation between BW and PW in sheep (22) and goats (4). However, in the present study, the Pearson coefficient showed a significant positive correlation between BW and PW.…”

“…Ocak et al (22) showed that parity did not have a significant effect on lamb BW in ewes from different breeds. Conversely, Dwyer et al (9) reported that lamb BW increased with maternal parity and that younger ewes had lower BWs than older ewes.…”

“…Previous studies indicate that PE and CD are inadequate parameters for determining the placenta's true efficacy in transferring nutrients to the fetus (9,22). However, Ocak et al (4) suggested that determining cotyledon efficiency by measuring the cotyledon surface area is a far more conclusive and reliable measure of placenta functional ability.…”

Determination of relationships between placental characteristics and birth weight in Morkaraman sheep

“…This study was conducted to determine the effects of parity, birth type and sex on placental and cotyledon traits in Morkaraman sheep. Parity did not affect BW, and results were similar to findings by Alkass et al (2013); results were different from Dwyer et al (2005) and Ocak et al (2013). Although the explanation of this situation is difficult, we can say that while 60 % of adult live weight for Morkaraman sheep is reached at 14-16 months of age, sheep are only pregnant at ages of 22-24 months (at approximately 90 % of adult live weight), because they are seasonally estrus.…”