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A Comparison of the Defleecing Action of Cyclophosphamide in Four Breeds of Sheep¹

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland 20705

Abstract

A total of 88 purebred yearling Dorset, Hampshire, Suffolk and Targhee rams and ewes were randomized within breed and sex to 9.1 or 12.2 mg of cyclophosphamide (CPA) per pound of body weight (20.0 or 27.0 mg/kg). The drug was given once, in freshly prepared aqueous solution, by stomach tube. The objective was to determine whether these breeds differ in their defleecing response to CPA.

The degree of wool loosening was assessed subjectively by a scoring system on days 6 and 8 after CPA treatment. The loosened wool was not manually removed, but was permitted to come off as it would in the course of the sheep's activities. The percentage of area from which wool had been lost from five contiguous locations on the body was estimated by visual inspection on day 13 after CPA treatment, and wool regrowth was measured on the shoulder 39 days after CPA treatment.

The response to CA was affected by sex, CPA dosage, the particular location of the wool on the sheep and days after CPA treatment in a manner generally similar to previous observations, but no differences were observed among the four breeds that would require a different management system for chemical defleecing for one breed relative to any of the others.

¹ The authors wish to thank Dr. H. Leo Dickison, Bristol Laboratories, Syracuse, New York, for supplying the cyclophosphamide used in this study and Dr. Larry R. Miller, formerly of the Data Systems Analysis Division, A.R.S., U.S.D.A., Beltsville, Maryland, for fitting the analyses of variance.

² U.S.D.A., A.R.S., Nutrition Institute, Ruminant Nutrition Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland 20705.

³ U.S.D.A., A.R.S., Nutrition Institute, Protein Nutrition Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland 20705.