Analysing the Cost of Concentrated Feed and Income from Meat in Relation to Relative Growth Rate and Kleiber’s Ratio in Intensive Fattening of Latvian Dark-Headed Lambs

Ilva Trapina (), Daina Kairisa and Natalia Paramonova
Additional contact information
Ilva Trapina: Genomics and Bioinformatics, Institute of Biology, University of Latvia, Jelgava str. 3, LV-1004 Riga, Latvia
Daina Kairisa: Institute of Agrobiotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Latvian University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Liela Street 2, LV-3001 Jelgava, Latvia
Natalia Paramonova: Genomics and Bioinformatics, Institute of Biology, University of Latvia, Jelgava str. 3, LV-1004 Riga, Latvia

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: One of the goals of the breeding program of the Latvian national sheep breed Latvian dark-head (LT; Latvijas tumšgalve) is the improvement of meat productivity, in parallel with good reproduction characteristics. The main part of the costs is the cost of feeding, which can be reduced by raising sheep with high feed efficiency. This goal can be achieved by selecting sheep based on feed efficiency indicators. The fattening data of 100 LT lambs were analysed using the relative growth rate (RGR) and Kleiber’s ratio (KR) indicators. The statistical difference was determined between low- and high-efficiency groups by calculating the cost of concentrate feed and income from meat realisation. The difference in the cost of concentrate feed was found after 60-days of intensive fattening and on the day needed for fattening up to 50 kg of live weight of lambs. When calculating the income of lamb meat, the differences between low and high RGR and/or KR efficiency groups were established. Thus, selecting high-ranking RGR and KR sheep can improve the cost and/or income of LT sheep breeders in Latvia.

Keywords: feed efficiency; feed cost; Latvian national breed; meat relation; lamb breeding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/4/593/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/4/593/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:4:p:593-:d:1372129

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().