Dorper sheep development in Indonesia

Sheep production in Indonesia has not met the demands for domestic and international markets which tends to continually increase every year. There is a significant gap between the upstream and the downstream sectors in sheep business process resulting in a stagnant supply of live sheep or their meats and co-products to the market. Unfortunately, sheep productivity in most traditional farmers is still relatively low. The local sheep are categorized as medium type in size and have several advantageous characteristics such as adaptive to the environment, resistance to ectoparasites, adaptive to low quality feed and prolific births. It is necessary to try making a huge effort to improve farming management and genetic quality of the local sheep to have high productivity and better meat quality. Garut Sheep is one of local breeds in West Java. Genetic improvement of local Garut sheep can be done by crossing them with superior type of meat sheep. It is hoped that the crossbred will inherit the superior characteristics of their two parents. Dorper is a superior type of meat sheep spread out all over the world with excellent adaptability and productivity. Therefore, HPDKI (Indonesian Sheep and Goats Farmers Association) introduced Dorper sheep (Black Head) from Australia with 8 males and 26 females to be further developed in Indonesia. The monitoring results during quarantine showed that Dorper sheep were able to adapt very well and there was no any incidence of disease. Dorper sheep were grouped into 3 groups of 8-10 females each with 1 male. The mating system was done naturally. They were fed a complete ration that has met the nutritional needs of both macro and micro nutrients. In the farm, Dorper sheep showed the following quantitative performances: averaged litter size 1.18, birth weight of single lamb 3.50 kg, birth weight of twins 2.94 kg, weaning weight of single lamb 21.43 kg, weaning weight of twins 15,50 kg, weaning age 90.05 days, Average daily gain (ADG) during lactation period 177.31 gram/head/day, lambing interval 245.91 days, gestation period 155.91 days, percentage of failed pregnancy 0.12%, percentage of male offspring 42, 50%, the percentage of female offspring 57.50%, lamb mortality 13.04%. The quantitative traits of Dorper sheep showed that the body shape was deep, wide, long and dense, no horns, a combination of fur hair and thin and short wool hair. The hair color of the head was black (20%) and the body was white (80%), the overall performance was uniform, stable and typically liked their parents. The other outstanding abilities were able to utilize low-quality feed properly with voracious nature for feed, resistance to heat stress and resistance to ectoparasites. It can be concluded that Dorper sheep is well adaptive to Indonesia tropical environment and is able to breed appropriately similar to their parents.