A Proposal for the Provision of Breeding Male Material in Small Ruminant Farming ”Breeding Ram and Buck Provision and Test Stations”

To provide breeding male animals free from diseases is one of the biggest problems of small ruminant farming. Farms that can not find suitable breeding male materials have to use the same ram or Bucks for long periods of time and thus the herds have not reached the desired levels in terms of the yield and yield declines are the case. By establishing ram-buck provision and test stations, this problem could be solved to according to the expectations of the breeders to provide qualified rams. The main target in the establishment of these centers is to collect ram or buck candidate male offsprings through pre-selection methods from the farms where the breeders can not keep them in their herds due to economical hardships. After the tests, the selected convenient breeding candidates could be utilized in the breeding herds in natural or artificial insemination methods to meet the need for breeding male materials. In this article, some difficulties and proposals have been given towards the establishment of test stations to provide breeding male material for small ruminant farming in countries like Turkey, where extensive breeding is in use and where recording systems have not yet been launched yet, and towards the roles of the Breeding Sheep and Buck Breeders’ Associations.