Testing the Influence of Climatic Conditions upon some Body Traits in Turcana Sheep from Romania.

The sheep rearing occupies a traditional place in Romanian animal production. In actual context of promoting sustainable development and need to face the climatic changes, this sector must evolve in an appropriate manner. This study aims to emphasize the characteristics of Turcana breed developmental body traits (full length, withers height, thorax perimeter, body weight, ear length, and tail length), function of the rearing environment, characterized by temperature and rainfall regimen, in North, and East Romania. The climatic data were collected by a 7 years interval, from public reports. We used the program STATISTICA v.8.0 for Windows. The majority of body developmental traits of Turcana sheep (full length -135.20 cm, withers heigth - 83.03 cm, ear length - 13.12 cm, and tail length - 41.96), recorded biggest values in individuals studied in Suceava County, and smallest (full length -127.95 cm, body weigth - 55.75 kg, ear length - 9.35 cm, and tail length - 32.23) in individuals from Brăila County. The biggest body development expressed by analyzed body traits is emphasized in Tircana sheep stocks studied in North Romania, compared to East Romania, except thorax perimeter. Moderate correlations are identified between Turcana sheep full length (R = 0.480), and withers heigth (R = 0.424), environmental temperature, and precipitations in studied areal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]