Abstract

This paper reports direct and maternal genetic parameters for faecal worm egg count (WEC), scouring, fleece and body weight traits in Merino sheep in a Mediterranean environment. WEC at 3 (WEC3) and 15 months (WEC 15) of age had a low heritably (0.19 and 0.15) and was genetically well correlated (0.66). Faecal consistency scores (FS) had a very low heritability at both times (0.04 and 0.09) and was genetically moderately correlated (0.39). The phenotypic relationship between WEC and FS at 3 and 15 months of age was about zero while the genetic relationship was negative and low (-0.21 to -0.25). The genetic relationship between FS15 and WEC 15 was virtually zero indicating that they are genetically different traits.

J. C Greeff, L. JE Karlsson

Proceedings of the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, Volume 24: Sheep and goats (fibre); sheep and goats (meat and milk); poultry; horses; buffaloes., , 63–66, 1998