Determination of Economic Values For Some Important Traits of Rayeni Cashmere Goats Reared Under Pasture System

Rayeni cashmere goat is one of the most important goat breeds in iran, nevertheless, the production rate and consequently the financial income are not satisfactory at the moment. this necessitates to investigate various features of the production chain, such as costs and revenues of the system. hence, in this study a deterministic bio-economic model was used to estimate the economic values for reproductive traits (conception rate, twining rate and litter size), production traits (body weight of kid sold at 6.5 months, annual cashmere weight, doe body weight and annual milk yield) and longevity (doe survival , survival of kid until weaning and survival of kid until sale age at 6.5 months), using data on 10 rayeni cashmere goat flocks including 1810 does and 95 bucks in kerman province, south-east of iran. sensitivity analysis of economic values to price levels of input and output was also carried out. revenue sources of production system included: live weight, milk and cashmere production, while live weight was the most important one and included 62.37% of the total revenues. total profit was us $ 126.2 per doe per year. the most important trait was annual milk yield followed by the litter size with the relative importance of 0.99 and 0.016, respectively. the least economically important trait was the doe body weight (-0.040). in this system, all economic values were positive except that for the doe body weight. changes in prices of input and output had a small effect on economic values.