A flock of sheep have 140% lambing. The goal is increased fleece weight with smaller fiber diameter. There are 960 ewes mated at a ratio of 1:40. Rams are two years old when their first offspring are born. After the 1st breeding season, ¾ of the rams are kept and used in a second
A flock of sheep have 140% lambing. The goal is increased fleece weight with smaller fiber
diameter. There are 960 ewes mated at a ratio of 1:40. Rams are two years old when their first
offspring are born. After the 1st breeding season, ¾ of the rams are kept and used in a second
season with those sold replaced with new, younger rams. Ewes first lamb at 2 years of age and
are retained for 6 lambings but 10% of ewes fall out each year because of non-pregnancy and/or
death loss (equal loss from all age groups). Fleece weight heritability is 0.3 and
lb.
A. Calculate the direct response to selection on fleece weight.
B. Fleece weight measures the quantity of fiber produced by an animal; however fleece
weight is related to fiber diameter with a genetic correlation of .35. Fiber diameter has
a phenotypic sd of 1.5 micron and heritability 0.5.
C. Calculate the response in fiber diameter from your selection on fleece weight.
D. You contracted with a university to perform a genetic evaluation for your flock. The
accuracy of selection for fleece weight from EPDs is now .8 for males and .7 for females.
a. What is the annual progress you would make in fleece weight by selection on EPDs for
fleece weight?
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