HARIPUR: The Ramghani breed of sheep has great potential to increase the income of farmers together with meeting the country’s mutton and fine quality wool needs.

The claim was made by Dr Sohrab Khan, director livestock experiment station, Jabba, while talking to Dawn here.

He said Ramghani breed, one of the total 30 breeds of sheep of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was in fact a new breed naturally developed after a cross between American Rambouillet ram and local Kaghani ewe.

He said the experiment was carried out at the station under a USAID-funded project launched in 1957. Since the thin-tailed American Rambouillet and Kaghani sheep could live in colder places like Malakand, the then government had imported the first herd of 80 ewe and five rams for growth of the breed. The second herd of 300 ewes and 21 rams was imported in 1992.

The veterinary department succeeded in developing Ramghani breed at the Jabba station, the South Asia’s only livestock experiment centre, Dr Sohrab said, adding wool of the new breed was soft and its per kilogramme rate was Rs80 to Rs120. Dr Sohrab said Ramghani sheep weighed 40 to 60 per cent more than the Kaghani breed.

He said the Jabba experiment station had so far distributed over 6,500 rams among the shepherds at subsidised rates. He said a Ramghani ram was sold for Rs8,000 to Rs10,000 for ensuring growth in its population and improving shepherds’ livelihood sources.

To a question about fast growth of Ramghani breed for meeting the country’s mutton needs through artificial insemination, Dr Sohrab said artificial insemination was not successful in small animals as the process was laborious and painful for small animals like sheep.

About slow growth of Ramghani, he said despite repeated requests the government had not imported new herd since 1992. He said 80 ewes and five rams were sufficient to help the Jabba centre to meet the objective of further increasing Ramghani population.

He said insufficient budget to provide feed to a population of 450 sheep and shortage of veterinary doctors were other reasons hampering increase in new breed population.

He said there was dire need of setting up three more such centres in Alai tehsil of Battagram, Galiyat in Abbottabad and in Upper Kaghan as these areas provided natural habitat to Ramghani breed.

He said facilities like meat processing and grading of wool obtained from Ramghani at the Jabba centre could help government increase its revenues.

He also recommended establishing a small animals directorate in Hazara on the pattern of Punjab for further growth in population of goat and sheep.

Dr Nasir Abbas Tanoli, veterinary officer, at the directorate of livestock in Peshawar, estimated that about 80-90 per cent of sheep population in Hazara division comprised Ramghani breed.

Meanwhile, according to “first checklist and distribution of sheep bread of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” published by Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies in 2017, the thin-tailed Ramghani breed had 11.08 per cent diversity, the second largest percentage after 13.75 per cent of Australian breed in KP.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2021