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The inheritance of traits describing early lamb performance in Scottish Blackface sheep

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

S. C. Bishop  and
K. Mackenzie
S. C. Bishop
Affiliation:
Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland, EH25 9PS
K. Mackenzie
Affiliation:
Roslin Institute (Edinburgh), Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland, EH25 9PS
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Extract

Ewe prolificacy, lamb survival and early lamb growth are economically important traits, playing a major role in determining the profitability of hill sheep farms (Conington et al., 2000). In currently advocated selection strategies these traits are usually expressed as traits of the dam, however, relatively low heritabilities limit the genetic progress achievable (Conington et al., 2001). An alternative approach is to treat these traits, where appropriate, as traits of both the ewe and lamb. This study investigates reparameterisation of these traits as joint expressions of both lamb and ewe genotype, and considers the impact of the results on currently-advocated selection strategies.

Type
Threatre Presentations
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science , Volume 2001 , 2001 , pp. 43
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Science 2001

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References

Conington, J., Bishop, S.C., Waterhouse, A. and Simm, G. 2000. A bioeconomic approach to estimating economic values for UK hill sheep. Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science 39.Google Scholar
Conington, J., Bishop, S.C., Grundy, B., Waterhouse, A. and Simm, G. 2001. Multi-trait selection indexes for sustainable improvement of UK hill sheep. Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science Google Scholar
Dwyer, C.M., Lawrence, A.B. and Bishop, S.C. 2000. The effects of selection for lean tissue content on maternal and neonatal lamb behaviours in Scottish Blackface sheep. Submitted to Animal ScienceGoogle Scholar
Gilmour, A.R., Thompson, R., Cullis, B.R. & Welham, S. 1996. ASREML. Biometrics Bulletin 3, NSW Agriculture.Google Scholar