MILKPRODUCINGABILITYOFWOOL-AND-MEATEWESDEPENDINGONMULTIPLELAMBING

Sheep breeding under the extreme natural and climatic conditions of the Altai Mountains where the indigenous population of the Republic lives is the basis of subsistence.Sheep breeding enables not only to preserve the communi-ties of sheep farmers but also to develop the traditions and culture of the native population of the Republic. The profit-ability of the sheep breeding industry in the market econo-my environment is highly dependent on ewe fertility. The research goal was to study the influence of multiple lamb-ingof wool-and-meatewes of the Gorno-Altayskaya breed (Prikatunskiy type) on their milk producing ability and the offspring live weight growth rates. The experiment was conducted in the Ust-Kanskiy District of the Republicof Altai in the peasant farm enterprise “Usoltseva N.A.” on wool-and-meatewes of the Gorno-Altayskaya breed (Pri-katunskiy type) in accordance with the following experiment design: the ewes of the third lactation were divided into groups of 10 ewes: GroupI -ewes with one lamb; Group II -ewes with twins (ram-lambs).It was found that the ewes with twins throughout all control periods exceed ewes with one lamb; over lactation their exceedance was 29.55 kg(P > 0.999); regarding live weight, the ram-lambs from the group with one lamb exceeded the lambs from the group with twins by 4.09 kg (P>0,999). However, in terms of prof-itability, the group of ewes with twins exceeded the group with one lamb by 79.69%. Consequently, increased multi-ple lambingof wool-and-meatewes of the Gorno-Altayskaya breed (Prikatunskiy type) will contribute to in-creasing the profitability of the sheep breeding industry in the Republic of Altai.