On March 12, 2024, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China issued a notice announcing a batch of new livestock and poultry breeds (matching series) that approved by the National Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources Committee. The "Huanmeng Mutton Sheep" new breed (Agriculture 03 New Breed Certification No. 29), led by Inner Mongolia Fuchuan Breeding Science and Technology Co., Ltd., with IMU as the first technical completion unit, Researcher Fellow Liu Yongbin from the College of Life Sciences as the chief expert and primary completer, has passed the appraisal of the National Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources Committee.

The "Huameng Mutton Sheep" is a new breed developed through a 15-year process in three stages of hybrid innovation, cross-fixation, and population expansion, using Dorper sheep as the sire and Small Tail Han sheep and Mongolian sheep as the dams, which is suitable for breeding in agricultural areas, pastoral areas, and mixed farming-pastoral areas. This breed boasts high fertility, good adaptability, tolerance to coarse feed, rapid growth, and high mutton production performance. The average weight of a 6-month-old ram is 49.79kg, and that of ewe is 47.05kg; the average weight of an adult ram is 105.28kg, while the ewe is 78.3kg, with an average daily weight gain of 311.4g/d. The fertility rate is over 242.26%. Overall, it ranks among the top international mutton sheep breeds.

During the cultivation process of the "Hua Meng Mutton Sheep" new breed, IMU Researcher Fellow Liu Yongbin led the team to complete a series of key tasks, including the formulating of the breeding scheme for "Hua Meng Mutton Sheep", establishing a core breeding population system based on molecular marker-assisted selection, devising selective breeding strategies, compiling breed standards, conducting genetic analysis of important traits, evaluating genetic stability, researching key technologies for improving the selected population, and writing the new breed acceptance report as well as presenting it for review.

Over the years, Researcher Fellow Liu Yongbin, a scientist within the National Sheep Industry Technology System, and his team have been grounded in the actual development of the mutton sheep industry in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the northern part of China, relying on various projects such as the National Mutton Sheep Industry Technology System, the National Key Research and Development Program, the Major Special Projects of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Mutton Sheep Breeding Key Tasks of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, they also have collaborated with domestic universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises to establish the Inner Mongolia Mutton Sheep Seed Industry Innovation Consortium. With the goal of achieving self-reliance and control over high-quality breeding sources, they have established a joint breeding technology system for superior sheep. This initiative has focused on tackling key core issues that constrain the sheep breeding industry through a collaborative approach, carrying out a series of highly effective works in the field of sheep breeding.

In the future, IMU will continue to strengthen the construction of the innovation alliance, forming a cooperative system of industry-academia-research-application promotion, and persistently carry out the selection and improvement work of new breeds such as "Huameng Mutton Sheep," in order to make greater contributions to support the national and regional revitalization of the breeding industry through science and technology.

Hua Meng Mutton Sheep New Breed On-site Verification Report Meeting

Adult ewe of Hua Meng Mutton Sheep

Adult ram of Hua Meng Mutton Sheep