REPRODUCTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE OF MEAT-FAT SHEEP UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF NORTHEASTERN KAZAKHSTAN

Sheep are the most widespread farm animal species on the globe due to many valuable biological and constitutional features, especially their high adaptive capacity. They are more technologically advanced animals, suitable for any industry system, namely, from purely stabling to year-round pasture keeping. One of the main directions of sheep breeding in Kazakhstan is meat sale, which gives a significant amount of the cheapest mutton and coarse wool necessary for the industry. Curd sheep by number of livestock occupy one of the first places in the country. The main mass of them is spread in semi-desert, desert, and dry-steppe zones of Abay and Pavlodar regions. The relevance of our study is due to the high importance of sheep breeding in the agrarian sector of the Republic of Kazakhstan. This industry provides production of meat, wool, leather and other demanded products, which have a stable demand both in domestic and foreign markets. However, for the sustainable development of sheep breeding, it is necessary not only to preserve the existing gene pool but also to ensure its rational use and improvement. Changes in climatic conditions, growing requirements for product quality, and high competition in the market require the application of modern approaches in breeding and stock management. The research aims to develop and apply modern breeding-technological and molecular-genetic methods to improve the genetic resources of sheep of different productivity directions. The results of the research were used to develop plans of selection and breeding work, which include the formation of new highly productive genotypes of sheep of different directions of productivity using the potential of domestic and foreign gene pools for the approbation of new breeding achievements. Thus, the conducted work confirms the efficiency of the developed selection-technological approaches.