Abstract

The Dohne Merino is a South A frican bred mutton-woolled sheep specifically b red for the sour-grassveld areas. A lthough phenotypically well documented, little w as know n about its genetic developm ent in econom ically im portant traits until the advent of B L U P- m ethodology. This paper describes genetic trends in greasy fleece m ass and body m ass traits over the w hole developm ent period and three distinct p hases of developm ent. G enetic progress w as slow b u t obvious differences in the response grad ien ts occurred in the three developm ental phases. W ithin phases the different traits m easured reacted sim ilarly

H. C de Klerk, H. J Heydenrych

Proceedings of the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Volume XV. Beef cattle, sheep and pig genetics and breeding, fibre, fur and meat quality., , 77–80, 1990