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The repercussions of the economic crisis have been severe upon the foundations of the Greek economy and society, and the margins for future development are more than ever strict and urgent. Within an economically turbulent period, agriculture's role is reexamined and is called to play an enhanced role, particularly the livestock sector that comprises a key growth element for the economy, bearing in mind the number of people and industries employed in the production and processing of dairy products. The present study is a classification approach regarding small ruminant farmers (sheep and goat), examining their reaction strategies against the economic crisis and its economic consequences to their farming systems. Primary quantitative data were collected through administrative (structured questionnaire) personal interviews from 110 small ruminant farmers, in the remote region of Anatoliki Macedonia and Thraki. A combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, cluster and discriminant analysis was employed to identify potentially distinct groups among the farmers. Results accrued reveal three clusters of farmers: the active entrepreneurs (47.2 % of the sample) who adopted more dynamic and cost-effective management practices, the complacent farmers (38.1 % of the sample) who followed a passive path of management decisions and the non-active farmers (14.7 % of the sample) who incorporate a static behaviour in the struggle against the economic crisis. The study is a first attempt to measure response to an ongoing economic crisis that has changed normal behaviour and expectations, and increased risk and uncertainty. In this sense, it demonstrates (with the use of the appropriate methodologies) the adaptation practices implemented by farmers from a significant economic sector (small ruminants), in a remote and less favourite Greek region, in order to persist and effectually respond to the current economic downturn.

An experiment was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of gestational undernutrition of rabbit does on growth, carcass composition and meat quality of the offsprings. Thirty primiparous non lactating rabbit does were artificially inseminated and randomly divided in three treatment groups: Control (C; fed to 100% of maintenance requirements throughout gestation, n = 10), early undernourished (EU; fed to 50% of maintenance requirements during days 7–19 of gestation, n = 10) and late undernourished (LU; fed to 50% of maintenance requirements during days 20-27 of gestation, n = 10). During the 4th week of the gestation period, LU does significantly lost weight compared to C and EU groups (P<0.05). At kindling, C does produced litters with higher proportions of stillborn kits (P<0.05) while the total litter size (alive and stillborn kits) was not different among groups (10.7, 12.8 and 12.7 kits in C, EU and LU groups, respectively). Kit birth weight tended to be lower in the LU group. During fattening, body weight and feed intake were not different among offsprings of the three experimental groups. Moreover, the maternal undernutrition did not have any impact on carcass composition of the offsprings in terms of carcass parts and internal organs weights as well as meat quality of L. lumborum muscle (pH24, colour, water holding capacity and shear values) at slaughter (70 days of age). Therefore, it can be concluded that the gestational undernutrition of the mother does not have detrimental effects on the productive and quality traits of the offsprings.

Parameters of daily milk yield during the first three lactations of Chios ewes were estimated with random regression models. Data consisted of 42 675 test-day records of 7121 ewes from 75 flocks that had lambed between 1998 and 2000. Models fitted fourth order fixed regressions on Legendre polynomials of the number of days post partum and fourth order random regressions on the individual animal. (Co)variance components were estimated with Gibbs sampling. Lactations were analysed separately. The four eigen values accounted for 0·80 to 0·84, 0·11 to 0·15, 0·04 to 0·05 and about 0·01 of the animal variance, respectively, depending on lactation number. Animal variance estimates, including genetic and, partly, permanent environment effects, were high at the beginning of each lactation and decreased as lactation progressed, suggesting that the animal effect is most important to early daily records. Residual variance was highest in the middle of lactation, suggesting that non-systematic environmental factors play a bigger at that time. Animal correlation estimates between daily yield records ranged from 0·26 to 0·99, were highest for adjacent days and decreased for days further apart. The decline had a different shape in the three lactations and was more evident in the first, suggesting that the three lactations may be biologically distinct traits. Animal correlation estimates between daily and total lactation milk yield ranged from 0·61 to 0·98 and were highest in the middle and lowest towards the end of lactation. Early lactation daily yield had an animal correlation of 0·70 to 0·80 with total lactation milk yield, in all three lactations. Results of this study suggest that daily milk yield records in the early stages of lactation may be useful for selection of ewes with high producing ability and accurate prediction of total lactation milk yield.

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