Country report of Turkey on small ruminant production with special reference to the selection programme for increasing milk production in dairy goat flock of University of Çukurova

Turkey in the leading sheep and goat rearing country in Europe, ranking 5th or 6th in the world with about 52 million head of small ruminants. On the contrary, their production performance is rather low. They are mainly kept on permanant grazing land and dry steppe areas with poor nutritive values in an extensive production system. In recent decades, although there is an attempt to improve their production performance and to develop more sophisticated breeds and genotypes, due to lack of a breeding strategy on a national scale, inadequate nutrition and not having performances of native breeds. This paper deals with the present situation of small ruminants in turkey and a project proposal in order to improve milk production performance of dairy goat flocks of Çukurova University and breeding stock, providing possibilities of the flock to the goat farmers in Çukurova region. The strategy followed is that of a selection programme based on progeny testing