RESULTS OF LONG BREEDING WORK WITH THE SOVIET MERINO SHEEP BREED IN APC OF THE COLLECTIVE FARM AND PEDIGREE PLANT NAMED AFTER LENIN IN THE ARZGIR DISTRICT OF THE STAVROPOL TERRITORY

Abstract

The Stavropol Territory remains still the pedigree base of the country. In terms of the
sheep number in the ranking of the Russian Federation, it is in third place after the republics
of Dagestan and Kalmykia, and in the number of breeding sheep it is in the first. The highly
productive breeding herds today continue to influence the selection processes in sheep
breeding in other regions of Russia.
Significant successes in the past were primarily determined by the demand for wool as
the main product of the fine-wool and semi-fine-wool sheep breeding. Recently, many options
can be heard both in terms of the number and quality composition of the animals needed for
the farms of the region.
The use of the Australian meat merino breed rams introduced in 2007 in a herd on the
ewes of the domestic Soviet merino breed allowed us to get animals with a combined
direction of productivity combining high fattening, meat qualities and fine merino wool. In
terms of quality, there products are in no way inferior to mutton obtained from sheep of
specialized meat breeds, but at the same time, high-quality merino wool of mainly 70 quality
(19-21micrometers) is obtained from these animals, which led to the creation and approval of
a new breed in 2016, this is the Russian meat merino with meat and wool direction of
productivity. The work was carried out under the guidance of Kh.A. Amerkhanov,
Academician of the RAS, in collaboration with M.V. Egorov, General Director of the
National Union of Sheep Breeders of Russia, scientists and farm specialists.