Heritability of Carcass Traits in Lambs

Genetic and phenotypic parameter estimates for selection to improve lamb carcass traits

“…The heritability estimate of CL in this study (0.43) was close to the estimate of 0.50 of Botkin et al (1969) where lambs were slaughtered at a constant liveweight. Thorsteinsson & Bjornsson (1982), using data adjusted to a constant carcass weight, reported heritability estimates of 0.59 for carcass length and 0.75 for both T and F. Bichard & Yalcin (1964) also reported high heritability estimates of 0.83 and 0.78 for T and F, respectively.…”

“…The fat indicator trait that has the most heritability estimates in the literature is C. Although Botkin et al (1969) estimated the heritability of fat depth as 0.51, most estimates included in the review of Wolf & Smith (1983) were near the value of 0.28 found in this study.…”

“…The phenotypic variances of A from the three studies were very similar (range 9.2-10.3mm 2 ). The heritability estimate of 0.36 for LM was less than the corresponding estimate of Botkin et al (1969) of 0.40. However, in both studies the LM heritability estimate was greater than the HCW heritability estimate.…”

“…The two traits, LEAN and FAT, have not been widely studied and Wolf et al (1981), who estimated the heritability of LEAN/(day of age) to be 0.23, and (2) Bennett et al (1991), who estimated the heritability of fat-free weight to be 0.21 (fat-free weight was defined as HCW-fat weight). Botkin et al (1969) and Bennett et al (1991) used the product of HCW and %fat from chemical analysis as fat weight, obtaining estimates of heritability for fat weight of 0.44 and 0.29, respectively. The estimate from the present study, 0.33, was intermediate to these published estimates.…”

Genetic and Phenotypic Parameters of Carcass Traits in Ram Lambs Reared Artificially in a Controlled Environment

“…Approximate standard errors associated with these estimates were computed according to Dickerson (1969 (Botkin et al 1969) but lower than 0.55'r0.23 (Cotterill and Roberts 1916). …”