Selection for fertility in Australian Merino sheep

Abstract

Phenotypic and genetic parameters for fertility in sheep, in terms of number of lambs born and number weaned, have been estimated in a flock of medium Peppin Merinos. Repeatability of fertility traits over all ages is low, but there is an age effect, the record at 3 years of age having a higher value than those at 2 or 4 years. The regression of subsequent performance on a difference of 1 lamb at the initial lambing was higher for the difference between 1 and 2 lambs than between 0 and 1 lamb, which indicated that selection for twins is likely to raise fertility in the current flock more rapidly than selection against barrenness. The estimate of heritability for 2 years of age was negligible for each fertility trait, but the estimates for the 3-year-old record were higher, the value for lambs born being over 0.3. Mass selection for number of lambs born at 3 years of age would thus be expected to lead to appreciable genetic progress, while there would be at least some progress in number of lambs weaned. Phenotypic and genetic correlations were also estimated between fertility at different ages and 10 sheep and wool traits measured at 15–16 months of age. Phenotypically, fertility is positively correlated with body weight and negatively with skin wrinkle score. Genetically, it is suggested from the estimates that fertility is positively correlated with body weight and staple length and negatively correlated with fibre diameter, clean scoured yield, and wrinkle score. No phenotypic or genetic correlation was found between greasy or clean wool weight and either measure of fertility. The application of the findings to breeding for higher fertility is discussed. In an appendix, a maximum likelihood method of estimating heritability for all-or-none traits in half-sib data is presented.