BRIEF COMMUNICATION: Preliminary estimates of genetic parameters adult dag scores in New Zealand sheep and their relationship with juvenile measurements

摘要

The accumulation of faecal material around the breech area of sheep (dags) is of interest to the New Zealand sheep industry for a variety of reasons, including financial penalties for presenting animals with dags at slaughter, reduced wool value, increased risk of fiystrike and the labour cost associated with dagging both lambs and adult ewes (Pickering et al. 2012). Currently, dag scores at both three (DAG3) and eight (DAG8) months of age are routinely measured, and analysed in Sheep Improvement Limited (SIL). However, there are currently no formally published estimates of the genetic relationship between dag score as a lamb and dag score as an adult (DAGA) in the New Zealand sheep population. Adult dag score has been found to be highly repeatablebetween 12 months to two years of age (R = 0.42) and between two and three years of age (R = 0.44) in different strains of Merino sheep (Larsen et al. 1995).