Livestock Studies 1991, Vol 31, Num, 1-2     (Pages: 111-122)

Blood Groups and its uses in Livestock Improvement

Orhan ALPAN 1 ,Okan ERTUGRUL 1

1 A.Ü. Veteriner Fakültesi Zootekni Anabilim Dalı, ANKARA - Animal Blood group studies started at al the turn of this century. Through the course of the studies many systems, allels and fenogroups have been discovered. Blood typing has been a routine practice in many countries around the world where successful raising of dairy cattle is practiced.

Blood group factors have simple Mendelian inheritance. An individual carries only the genes of its parents. This feature provides some conveniences for the livestock improvement.

One of the primary uses of blood group studies in livestock practices is parentege control. It is also used in determining the type of twinnig and in estimating the genetic distances among the animal populations. Blood group genes may be used as markers in relation to productive characteristics. Keywords :