Evaluation of Genetic Parameters of Milk Yield and some of its Composition with Wool Yield and some of its Physical Traits in Two Breeds of Iraqi Sheep

This study was conducted on two flocks of Awassi (100) and Hamdani (70) ewes during 2009 and 2010 seasons to estimate the genetic parameters for the two breeds, productivity of each breed, heritability, genetic and phenotypic correlation of milk yield and its composition by monthly intervals 15 days post-lambing for 5-6 months, wool yield and some of its physical traits within these two seasons. The results revealed a highly significant effects (p 0.01) for breed on daily milk yield (DMY), greasy fleece weight (GFW), fiber diameter (FD), while the effect of breed was significant (p 0.05) on staple length (SL) only. Heritability estimates for (DMY) and its composition were low for both breeds ranged from (0.11-0.23), while they were low to high for wool yield and traits ranged from (0.15-0.51). Genetic correlation values for milk and wool traits for both breeds were all highly significant (p 0.01) between positive and negative. Phenotypic correlation values for both breeds were highly significant (p 0.01) for (DMY) with both (GFW) and clean fleece weight (CFW) 0.10,0.15 and 0.11,0.16 for Awassi and Hamdani ewe flocks respectively. While the rest of the values were negative or non significant