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A preliminary study of the relation between the fleece characteristics of weanling and yearling range sheep

United States Department of Agriculture

Abstract

Customary practice among sheep husbandmen is to make the first careful evaluation of the fleece at the time of first shearing, approximately at the yearling age. While some culling on the basis of obvious defects of the wool is done at the time of weaning, no careful study is made of the fleeces of individual animals at that time.

From the standpoint of wool improvement this practice has several limitations. First, no records are obtained on animals that are culled at weaning or that die subsequent to first shearing and, as a result, progeny comparison of sires must be confined to those animals that remain in the flock at shearing. In the second place, progeny comparisons of rams are thus delayed until the ram is three years old, which, considering the relatively short breeding life of a ram, is of much importance in the case of valuable sires.

A better practice, provided the wool of the weanling lamb is indicative of that of the mature sheep, would be to make all selections of breeding sheep on the basis of the weanling characteristics of the lambs. Under such a plan all animals alive at weaning would be available for progeny comparisons, and, more important perhaps, progeny tests on a sire used in one year would be available before the beginning of the next breeding season.