Category: Livestock

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Goat weight competitions in Pakistan

I can’t resist sharing this message which Prof. Dr. Muhammad Sajjad Khan sent to DAD-Net yesterday.

News of the hour is that new weight record of a goat is now 291 kg. This was accomplished in the weight competitions just held during the last one hour here at Faisalabad (Pakistan). The Buck belonged to Beetal breed and strain was Faisalabadi. Some of you might know that last year’s record was 280 kg and some people did not believe that it could be broken. See the potential. The 2nd and 3rd position holders were not far away (289.5 and 289 kg). Weight competitions for goats are held every year here at Faisalabad before the Eid festival. For younger bucks (less than 2 teeth, completions are expected to be completed on Sunday, the 30th Oct. Will share the photos and details. The beauty, weight and milk competitions at individual and flock level are expected to be completed by Monday. I will post the photos soon. University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) is organizing these competitions and among others, GEF-UNEP-ILRI Asia project is one of the co-sponsors.

Can’t wait for those photos…

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Digging around for evidence of horse domestication

I could have sworn I had already blogged about the fascinating recent archaeological finds in Saudi Arabia which seem to have pushed the evidence of horse domestication back to 9000 years ago and to a somewhat different area. But if I did, I can’t find the post. Uzbekistan, yes. A genetic nibble from China, yes.

But nothing about the Al-Magar finds. No matter, though, because now horsetalk.co.nz has a great roundup not only of the Saudi findings, but also of those from different sites in Kazakhstan, complete with photos. Findings which may well lead to a slight change in the geographical reference in the following pithy summary of the genetic evidence that we also blogged about recently.

Horses were domesticated in a broad area across the Eurasian steppe, and in this species the husbandry style has left considerable signatures. It is presumed that mares were domesticated numerous times, but that only a few stallions contributed to the genetic make-up of the domestic horse.

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Nibbles: Bangladeshi horticulture, USDA-ARS impact, NY native seeds, Spate irrigation, FIGS, Livestock trifecta