Morphological Characteristics of Zom Sheep

Abstract

This research was a descriptive study and carried out on Zom sheep raised in the mount Karacadag province in Diyarbakir, Turkey. The study was conducted to determine some morphological characteristics of the Zom sheep according to different age and sex groups. A total of 16 males and 195 females were measured. Overall means and standard errors of some characters of rams and ewes were: live weight 65.0 +/- 2.0 and 46.0 +/- 1.25 kg, wither height 76.2 +/- 1.57 and 67.9 +/- 0.94 cm, height at rump 75.5 +/- 0.83 and 67.9 +/- 0.50 cm, body length 66.1 +/- 0.91 and 60.2 +/- 0.55 cm, heart girth circumference 99.8 +/- 1.73 and 94.7 +/- 1.04 cm, chest depth 34.4 +/- 0.59 and 29.9 +/- 0.36 cm, chest width 21.1 +/- 0.49 and 18.2 +/- 0.30 cm, respectively. The overall results of this study show that the Zom sheep have some similarities with Karakas, Awassi and Akkaraman sheep according to morphological characteristics.