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Researchers at the University of Missouri, led by R. Michael Roberts, have demonstrated that ewes fed a diet enriched with polyunsaturated fats for one month prior to conception have a significantly higher chance of giving birth to male offspring.

"Our study ruled out body condition, ewe weight, previous births, time of breeding and likely dominance as reasons for the gender skewing", he said. "Rather, it was the composition of the diet consumed in the time period around conception that was responsible for this sex-ratio effect."

Roberts said the study is the first "in controlled conditions showing that supplementing maternal diet, in this case by increasing omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid intake, can skew the sex ratio towards males in a farm species."

He said the research is important to the livestock industry.

"Increasing the amount of fat in feed during the breeding period could provide a means of controlling the sex ratio of offspring born to a herd or flock", he said.

The study is reported in the online journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinolgy.

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