Productivity and Breeding Strategies of Sheep in Indonesia: A Review

There are two distinct types of sheep in Indonesia: thin-tailed and fat-tailed, with some strain differentiation within each. The most important sheep breeds of Indonesia are the Javanese Thin Tail (JTT) and Javanese Fat Tail (JFT) sheep of West and East Java, respectively. Included are strains of thin tailed sheep Sumatra Thin Tailed (STT), Semarang, Garut and the Priangan sheep. The government also introduced some temperate sheep breeds (such as: Merino, Suffolk, Dorset, Suffas, Dormer, St.Croix and Barbados Blackbelly sheep). The purposes of this paper are to review the potential of productivity for local sheep and their crosses with some imported sheep breeds. The concepts of breeding strategies for sheep in Indonesia are also discussed in three parts: (1) evaluation and improvement of local breeds (2) nucleus structure, and (3) gene migration (crossbreeding)