Fat-Tailed sheep-An important sheep genetic resource for meat production in tropical countries: An overview

Sheep are a major animal genetic resource for rural farmers of developing countries. Human population growth, increase in purchasing power and awareness among consumers are the major driving forces for raising the demand of sheep products. The contribution of Indian sheep to world meat production is only 5%. It has been foresighted that sheep sector is going to play a key role to uplift the economy of farmers by improving the livelihood of the rural poor, who account sizable of Indian population. Apart from the utility (meat, wool and milk) sheep can also be classified phenotypically by their tail type as fat-tailed and thin-tailed sheep. Compared to thin-tailed, fattailed sheep are well adapted to harsh environments of the tropics and also contribute more meat-(nearly double of thin tailed sheep) to the shepherds. Fat-tailed sheep constitute 25% of the world-sheep population. More than 293 million sheep of about 60 fat-tailed breeds are found in the different parts of world in the Middle East, North and Southern Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Central Asian Republics and China. In India, at-tailed sheep are scanty in number. The propagation of at-tailed ff sheep can increase meat production and provide more income and livelihood to the farmers. In this review, history of fat-tailed sheep along with their breeds, distribution, adaptive qualities, growth, production and reproduction performance, carcass yield and quality are reviewed with an objective to explore the possibility of their propagation for increase in meat production.