Abstract

Results of experimental MOET programme in elite ewes selected from within an ultrafine Merino flock are presented. Of the treated ewes, 60% provided transferable donors with a mean of 16.7 ovulations and 10.4 embryos recovered, 7.8 embryos transferred, 3.9 lambs born and 3.1 lambs weaned per donor ewe. The wool produced by hoggets from this elite embryo transfer group was 0.9 um (P0.01) finer than that from their contemporaries in the ultrafine selection flock and 2.5 um (P0.01) finer than a random Merino control group. The improvement in fibre diameter was better than expected from the selection differentials, but not significantly so. The h2 estimates for liveweight, clean fleece weight, fibre diameter and yield in three flocks of fine woolled Merinos were 0.50, 0.32, 0.39 and 0.58 respectively. The MOET programme was successfully applied to increase the number of progeny from elite ultrafine Merino ewes.

T, Wuliji, J Aspinall, JTJ Land, GH Shackell, KG Dodds, RN Andrews, and J Rogers

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 55, , 281-284, 1995