Darkening of the color as а marker sign of reduced reproductive ability of female sable (martes zibellina) and mink (neovison vison)

Abstract

Based on the materials of 23 fur-bearing animal farms of the Russia for different periods of years, a comparative assessment of the reproductive capacity of sable and mink females of standard breeds (wild type) has been carried out. It was established that during intrabreeding differentiation according to the overall color of the hair coat (almost black, black-brown, dark brown and chestnut), the lowest reproduction level is characterized by darker females of sable, which are a significant increase in the number of them, mated with male, but not given offspring (barren females). According to the results of interbreed comparisons of sables and minks, parallelism was found in the variability of the reproductive capacity of females, which is manifested in the fact that, in contrast to relatively light animals, animals that are dark in color are characterized by a greater number of barren females and low fecundity.