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9. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Many trials with Finn sheep have been carried out over the last two decades albeit in isolation from each other. Such rich experiences were not exchanged between countries of the region, especially in view of the lack of reports in many of these trials. Causes of failure, when they existed, were common among these trials. Sharing experiences between countries in the region would be useful to avoid duplicated efforts in these trials. General conclusions on the introduction of Finn sheep which may be drawn from different trials reported in this paper are as follows:

  1. All the trials aiming at breeding pure Finn sheep under subtropical conditions in the region were not successful. Pure Finn sheep faced problems of adaptability to prevailing environmental conditions and had some health problems, especially pneumonia. Bad management contributed significantly to the failure of some of these trials.
  2. On the other hand, all the crossbreeding trials with Finn sheep in the region were quite successful. They showed that genetic factors responsible for high prolificacy and good fertility in this breed were transmitted to their crosses with different native subtropical sheep in the same way as with temperate breeds.
  3. Pure Finn rams, or nucleus flocks, involved in these crossbreeding trials should not be walked for long distances to the pasture or exposed to direct solar radiation.
  4. Difficulties of Finn rams in mating with fat-tail ewes were frequently reported. AI was used successfully to overcome this problem. In some instances it seems easier to train these rams on hand serving the native fat-tailed ewes. Docking of native ewe-lambs is not practical, except on an experimental scale.
  5. Prolificacy, defined as number of lambs born/ewe lambed, was improved in the Finn crosses as compared to the native sheep in the region from 33 to 56 percent in the 1st cross and from 19 to 32 percent in the 1/4 Finn. However, most of the Finn crossbred ewes reported had not attained maturity to show their full potentiality.
  6. It was interesting to note that Finn crossbred ewes with subtropical sheep showed encouraging results in their ability to breed more than once/year, especially those with lower Finn blood.
  7. The preliminary results obtained on the interbred groups of the Finn crosses did not show much drop in ewe reproductive performance. More data are still needed to clear that point.
  8. Crossing with Finn rams greatly decreased the fat-tail in the progeny, especially in the first cross. This point should be considered carefully from the point of view of lamb marketability. Crossing with Finn sheep also decreased the amount of subcutaneous fat, but increased internal and intermuscular fat.
  9. Results on using terminal sires in the Finn crossbred ewes were not encouraging. Furthermore, it complicated the crossbreeding system for implementation under small farmer conditions and with less educated producers.
  10. The utilization of Finn embryos and/or frozen semen in the cross breeding trials with native sheep is worthy of investigation to avoid problems of adaptability of imported Finn rams/sheep and as a possibly less expensive procedure.
  11. Evaluation of the results of Finn crosses under breeder conditions is essential before recommending its wide implementation in each country.
  12. The ongoing trials should be monitored and evaluated constantly to provide an answer on points which are still obscure.