Potential Hazardous Factors Affecting Survival of Mecheri Lambs

Author: B. Balasundaram*, A.K. Thiruvenkadan, N. Murali, J. Muralidharan and D. Cauveri

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Abstract

Survival analysis is an essential step for understanding lamb survival function and the hazardous factors affecting mortality rate. The survival data of 3715 Mecheri lambs born during the period from 1979 - 2018 at Mecheri Sheep Breeding Research Station, Pottaneri, Tamil Nadu were utilized for the analysis. Kaplan - Meier approach was used to estimate the survival function of lambs. The survival analysis with Cox proportional hazard model was carried out to assess the impactful factors of lamb mortality. Mortality in different growth intervals viz., birth to 3 months, 3 months to 6 months, 6 months to 9 months and 9 months to 12 months were recorded as 6.05 %, 4.74 %, 2.1% and 1.37 %, respectively. In all the four growth groups, male lambs were having higher hazard rate than females and the survival rate is higher for lambs born in main season than in off season. The survival rate of lambs with high birth weight was comparatively superior to the lambs having lesser birth weight. In co

Keywords

Mecheri sheep, Mortality, Survival rate, Kaplan Meier curve, Cox regression.