• Livestock
• Economics
• Environment

Practice Abstract de SMARTER: Cría de pequeños rumiantes para la eficiencia y la resiliencia

Sheep and goats adapt naturally to extreme conditions: they are found in mountainous or hilly areas. They have a natural resilience, that is, an ability to maintain or quickly recover production and good health after exposure to various nutritional and infectious challenges. Their breeding makes it possible to promote territories that are disadvantaged, and in which no livestock farming or cultivation is possible. Nowadays, sheep and goat farms suffer from a lack of innovation and attractiveness, in particular for improving animal efficiency: that is to say to better value food resources at their disposal (mobilization of reserves, limitation of gas emissions, etc.). Currently, in period of extreme weather conditions, the use of cereals, at high and fluctuating costs, is often essential to supplement animal feed. And there is a conflict between the resources necessary for animal and human nutrition. An agro-ecological approach (based on a selection privileging the genetic traits of well-being and health, and those which make possible to measure the efficiency of use of local food resources - pasture, fodder, by-products of industry), limits the use of concentrated feed and phytosanitary products, and reduces the environmental footprint of this breeding. Genetic selection can intervene to tackle these different issues, by integrating phenotypes of resilience and adaptation that enhance extensive breeding, into the selection objectives. The resilience and efficiency traits studied in Smarter are: 1. For resilience: health and welfare, disease resistance, longevity, fertility, lamb vigor, survival, robustness, 2. For efficiency: food efficiency, resource allocation, microbiota, gas emissions. 3. Tradeoff between R&E traits