In sheep production, the body condition score has the potential to be a useful management tool for producers to lift animal performance especially during pregnancy and lactation. In the present study, it was shown that the ewe’s body condition score at lambing had no effect on lamb birth weight. However, the lamb growth rate and their weight at 30 and 70 days were higher for offspring of ewes with middle and high BCS.

The aim at this study was to determine the relationship among the lamb birth weight and the cotyledon surface area (ACSA) and cotyledon size. Data were collected from 101 ewes. This study indicates that average cotyledon surface area and cotyledon size traits (CL and CWi) may be more effective parameters to produce heavier lambs. In conclusion, it is thought that lamb deaths will decrease as a result of triggering placental development with proper feeding during pregnancy.

Sequencing of the GDF9 gene in 16 twin-birth, 4 triplet-birth, and 2 infertile ewes from Iranian sheep with verified segregation of G2–6 mutations, as well as a new G0 mutation, C25T, which causes L9F substitution in the signal peptide region. None of the triplet-birth or infertile ewes carried the G1, G4, G7, FecGE, G8, or FecGT mutations. In addition, using a large dataset comprised of 605 individuals showed a significant difference in the abundance of G1 and G4 mutations between breeds.