@conference {75916,
	title = {Genetic and phenotypic relationships between flystrike indicator traits in a stud Merino flock},
	booktitle = {Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	volume = {71},
	year = {2011},
	month = {Jan},
	pages = {251-256},
	publisher = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	organization = {New Zealand Society of Animal Production},
	address = {Invercargill},
	abstract = {<p>Increasing breech wrinkles, breech cover and dags increase flystrike susceptibility of Merino sheep. Urine stain has been implicated in flystrike, although there is a paucity of data. At tail docking in 2007, 2008 and 2009 on a property breeding Merino rams, breech wrinkle (1 to 5) was scored on 238, 202 and 337 lambs that were the progeny of 12, 9 and 9 sires respectively. Dag score (0 to 5), urine stain (0 to 5) and breech cover (1 to 5) were scored at 100 days of age. Breech wrinkle score (h{\texttwosuperior} = 0.51 {\textpm} 0.11) and breech cover (h{\texttwosuperior} = 0.27 {\textpm} 0.08) were heritable, and phenotypically (0.16 {\textpm} 0.04, P \&lt;0.05) and genetically correlated (0.77 {\textpm} 0.14, P \&lt;0.05). Dag and urine stain scores were skewed towards low scores and the heritability estimates for these traits were low (h{\texttwosuperior} = 0.08 {\textpm} 0.07 and 0.04 {\textpm} 0.06 respectively). Yearling clean fleece weight was heritable (h{\texttwosuperior} = 0.28 {\textpm} 0.13) and genetically correlated with breech cover (-0.62 {\textpm} 0.26, P \&lt;0.05). There was no evidence of flystrike during the investigation, but there was potential to decrease susceptibility by decreasing breech cover and breech wrinkles in this flock.</p>
},
	issn = {1176-5283},
	author = {Scobie DR and Hickey SM and Maslen DP and Black GM}
}
