Friday 25 / October / 2024
Muscat: For the first time in the Sultanate, a goat has delivered In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF)-born triplets, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries announced.
This came after specialists from the animal reproduction research centre at the ministry used artificial insemination to impregnate a goat of the Jabali dynasty. The ministry said, “This is the first time that artificial insemination techniques were used on a goat.”
Rashid bin Saud Al Habsi, Director of the Animal Reproduction Research Centre said, “We have succeeded in using the technique of artificial insemination on local goats (Jabali). Artificial insemination is an important means to accelerate genetic improvement in animals, which contributes to the dissemination of genetically distinct genes, in a short period compared to natural ways."
He added: "This experiment will be used in two animal research centres in Wadi Qurayyat and Salalah during the next mating season (October 2018) in order to obtain the highest genetic return from the males used in the process."
Specialists from the centre used local male samples of goats, from north and south of the Sultanate which are genetically superior and have high growth speed, in addition to containing the genes responsible for increasing the amount of milk.
In the first quarter of 2018, the technology was applied to a number of animals in the centre. The experiment was first conducted on female goats, so to test the efficiency of this technique, and was carried out by Omani cadres of specialists in the Department of Goat and Sheep Research and Reproductive Research Department.
