Genetics is key to the improvement of welfare in broiler chickens at both juvenile and adult (breeder) stages but progress is hampered currently by the seemingly conflicting demands of welfare, commercial production, food security and calls for increasing intensification to curb climate change. Animal welfare is therefore most likely to be improved on a commercial scale by future breeding progr...

An animal model and computer software were developed to conduct across-herd genetic evaluations using data from producers participating in the Sow Productivity Index program of the American Yorkshire Club. The final data set consisted of 61,596 litter records from 1986 to early 1990. The animal model included fixed contemporary group effects and random additive direct, service sire, permanent e...

M.L. Makgahlela, B. Fan, Z.-Q. Du and M.F. Rothschild 1 Agricultural Research Council, Private Bag X2, Irene 0062, South Africa 2 Department of Animal Science and Centre for Integrated Animal Genomics, Iowa State University, Ames, 50011, USA 3 Key Laboratory of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education & College of Animal Science & Technology, Huazhong Agric...

Background The concept of Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) is rapidly evolving in animal and plant breeding. With the advent of high throughput molecular technology, numerous molecular markers distributed throughout the whole genome can be produced to characterize many genetic entries involving new perspectives in methodology of selection. An important research activity has begun in the animal w...

Background: Milk proteins genes have been the focus of the researches as the candidate target genes that play a decisive role when animal breeding is desired.Objectives: In the present study, the transcriptional levels of Beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) and Alpha S1 casein (CSN1S1) genes were investigated during prenatal, milking and drying times in mammary glands of the Adani goats which showed...

THE TERM “pasture quality” is a measure of the ability of the pasture to provide the nutritive requirements of the grazing animal. Many plant constituents contribute to this policy but only one group, the carbohydrates, will be considered here. At present probably the only reliable and meaningful method of assessing the relative nutritive value of different pastures is by comparing actual anima...

The sizeable investments in genomic studies at the DNA, RNA, protein, and metabolic pathway levels must ultimately provide return in terms of more efficiency in developing improved crop hybrids and varieties. The particular genomic application of molecular markers can be considered a ‘window into the genotype’. By incorporating molecular marker information with phenotypic information as the bas...

www.bioversityinternational.org Assessing the genetic variability of crops is required to identify and develop cultivars (cultivated varieties) suitable for speci c growing conditions and speci c economic, social and environmental needs. Modern breeding relies on the identi cation of DNA regions that control complex traits of agronomic interest, such as resistance to drought, yield and plant he...