Archaeol is a cell membrane lipid of methanogenic archaea excreted in feces. This study, based on respiration chamber measurements, revealed that fecal archaeol concentration offers some potential in serving as a proxy for individual methane emission but that it also cannot be implemented easily on a farm because diet composition, dry matter intake, and the time for fecal sampling have to be taken into account.

The aim of this review was to evaluate the relationship between the body condition of cows and reproduction. Reproduction was evaluated from the viewpoint of animal husbandry traits, ovarian activity and embryo transfer.

Lanping black-boned sheep is a novel and rare sheep breed discovered in the 1950s in China and has the same hyperpigmentation trait as silk fowl. Lanping black-bones sheep has same morphology with Lanping native sheep such as coat color, and horns and tail shape, so it's interesting to investigate the genetic relationship of the two breeds and the genetic origin of Lanping black-boned sheep. Lanping black-boned sheep and Lanping native sheep have great genetic similarity.

In sheep production, the body condition score has the potential to be a useful management tool for producers to lift animal performance especially during pregnancy and lactation. In the present study, it was shown that the ewe’s body condition score at lambing had no effect on lamb birth weight. However, the lamb growth rate and their weight at 30 and 70 days were higher for offspring of ewes with middle and high BCS.

Indigenous chickens (ICs) are known for disease resistance and hardiness. The role of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in disease resistance is well known. The present study carried out to find out variability at the MHC revealed higher genetic variability at the MHC of ICs over White Leghorn birds. ICs are likely to have new alleles of the LEI0258 marker of MHC. Some alleles were found to be associated with growth, production, survivability and antibody titres to Newcastle disease virus.