A total number of 600 female buffaloes, having 3321 lactation records, from first to tenth parity, kept at three experimental farms (Mahalet Mousa, El-Nataf El-Gaded and El-Nataf El-Kadem), belonging to the Animal Production Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Cairo, Egypt, during the period from 2000 to 2007 were used to study genetic and phenotypic progress, achieved by the Mixed Model Equations (MME) for the Best Liner Unbiased Prediction. The number of sires were 66 sires and the average number of daughters per sire were 12.50. Mixed Model Least square analyzed was used to estimate fixed effects of month and year of calving, parity and farm on (total milk yield (TMY), lactation period (LP), fat yield (FY), protein yield (PY), lactose yield (LY) and somatic cell count (SCC). Data were analyzed using Multi Trait Animal Model to estimate genetic parameters and breeding values.

The objectives of the present study were to estimate mean, heritability, genetic and phenotypic correlations and genetic trend. Data of 1776 records of Egyptian buffaloes, kept at Mehallet Mousa farm, Ministry of Agriculture, during the period from 1972 to 2002 were used to estimate the genetic parameters for productive traits, total milk yield (TMY), 305-day milk yield (305-DMY), lactation period (LP) and dry period (DP) and the reproductive traits were calving interval (CI) and days open (DO). Data were analysed using the software package VCE-6 Groeneveld et al (2010).

This research was conducted to evaluate the Friesian cattle performance and study the relationship among different days open periods, total milk yield and days in milk at the first lactation of Friesian cows under different Egyptian conditions. Milk productive and reproductive data were collected from 3258 Friesian cows of six farms. Farm No.1 is a governmental, while other farms are commercial farms located in Kafr El-Sheikh, Cairo-Alexandria desert road, Gharbia, Sharqia, Daqahlia, Beheira governorates and were named from 1, 2, … to 6, respectively. Days open (DO) was classified to 10 classes, each class of 30 days (from < 60 to ≥ 300 d). The overall average of age at first calving, days open, calving interval, days in milk (DIM) and total milk yield (TMY) of all farms were 29.4 mo, 174.4, 472.0 and 359.2 d and 6173.5 kg, respectively. Results of this study showed that, in all examined farms, the 1 st lactation TMY and DIM significantly differed by the differences of the DO lengths. The study recommended that the most appropriate length of DO could be from 60 to <120 d, for Friesian cows under different managerial conditions in Egypt.

The study seeks to characterize socio-economic and farm characteristics of small ruminant smallholders in four districts of northern Egypt. Structured questionnaire was used for data collection from 60 small ruminants' farmers and analyzed with descriptive statistics. Findings show that the average age of respondents included in this study was about 46.6±13.6 years and across the four districts farmer age was not significantly different. The present results showed a high illiteracy rate (75%) among small ruminant farmers across the four districts. Majority (68.4%) of the respondents were identified themselves as full-time farmers, derived that household income from the sale of crops and/or animals only. However, the average household size was 6.2±2.2 persons and about 66.2% of household size are men. The results cleared a positive relationship between education level and access to off farm job. The average land holding per household in the study area is estimated as 6.6±3.3 acres. There is negative correlation between total land holding and herd size. Across the four districts, the data showed that the overall average of herd size consists of 68.1% sheep, 21.1% goats and 10.8% large ruminant. Suckling age represent larger proportion in the flock for sheep and goats, while breeding females is the second largest age group in the flock. On the other hand, lamb/kid is the lowest age groups in the flock which indicated that farmers are forced to rely early marketing of their lambs/kids. Thus, socio-economic and farm characteristics offer significant input in designing effective small ruminant programs.

Data used in this investigation were collected from 4370 records relevant to 874 purebred Friesian cows which belong to Shobratana Animal Production Society, located in the north part of Delta region near Tanta city in Egypt. These cows were daughters of 43 sires. The records used covered the period from 1985 to 2003. The following six productive and reproductive traits of the first lactation were analyzed: Total Milk Yield (TMY, kg), dry period (DP, day), lactation length (LL, day), days open (DO, day), calving interval, (CI, month) and age at first calving (AFC, month).sire random effect and month and year fixed effect. Data were analyzed using Linear Mixed Model Least Squares and Maximum Likelihood (LSMLMW) computer program of Harvey (1990). The overall means of TMY, DP and LL were 5387 kg, 72.9 days and 327 days, respectively. The overall means of CI, DO and AFC were 13.4 month, 121 days and 27.8 month, respectively. Heritability estimates for TMY, DP, LL, CI, DO and AFC were 0.141±0.074, 0.109±0.069, 0.040±0.057, 0.104±0.068, 0.202±0.084 and 0.217±0.087 respectively. The ranges of breeding values of all sires in the pedigree for TMY, DP, LL, DO and CI were 685 kg, 18 day, 8.15 day, 48.2 day and 1.05 month, respectively. Spearman rank correlations and Pearson correlations among estimated breeding values of all sires in pedigree provided by the genetic analysis ranged between -0.712 to 0.907. The objectives of the present study were: 1) to estimate some genetic and non-genetic factors affecting productive and reproductive traits, 2) to estimate genetic and phenotypic parameters for these traits and 3) to estimate breeding values for sire Friesian cows in this farm. Rank correlations of animals between traits were the lowest for reproduction traits. It could be concluded that improving the environmental conditions will improve these traits.