Abstract

Fleeces from 28 000 Romney ewe hoggets in 14 mobs on 7 farms were weighed. Within each mob the top 1% hogget fleece weight (High) and a random 1% (Random) were identified, midside sampled and weighed off-shears. Subsequently the top 0.6% on hogget fleece weight from each mob and a random 0.3% were transferred to Woodlands Research Station and managed as one flock for the next year. At hogget shearing (9 months fleece) the 14 High sub-groups had an average 1.08 kg higher fleece weights (greasy) and 0.83 kg higher clean fleece weights than the Random sub-groups. There was a close between sub-group relationship between greasy fleece weight and live weight with the High hoggets having 0.78 kg heavier fleeces at the same live weight. The High hogget sub-groups had a higher mean live weight (+3.9kg), fibre diameter (+2.7

DB, Binnie, and KH Elliott

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 46, , 202-205, 1986