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Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population

Understanding the phenotypic factors that affect lamb live weight and carcass composition is imperative to generating accurate genetic evaluations and further enables implementation of functional management strategies. This study investigated phenotypic factors affecting live weight across the growi...

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Autores principales: McGovern, Fiona Mary, McHugh, Noirin, Fitzmaurice, Shauna, Pabiou, Thierry, McDermott, Kevin, Wall, Eamon, Fetherstone, Nicola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7758996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33409463
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/tas/txaa206
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author McGovern, Fiona Mary
McHugh, Noirin
Fitzmaurice, Shauna
Pabiou, Thierry
McDermott, Kevin
Wall, Eamon
Fetherstone, Nicola
author_facet McGovern, Fiona Mary
McHugh, Noirin
Fitzmaurice, Shauna
Pabiou, Thierry
McDermott, Kevin
Wall, Eamon
Fetherstone, Nicola
author_sort McGovern, Fiona Mary
collection PubMed
description Understanding the phenotypic factors that affect lamb live weight and carcass composition is imperative to generating accurate genetic evaluations and further enables implementation of functional management strategies. This study investigated phenotypic factors affecting live weight across the growing season and traits associated with carcass composition in lambs from a multibreed sheep population. Four live weight traits and two carcass composition traits were considered for analysis namely; birth, preweaning, weaning, and postweaning weight, and ultrasound muscle depth and fat depth. A total of 427,927 records from 159,492 lambs collected from 775 flocks between the years 2016 and 2019, inclusive were available from the Irish national sheep database. Factors associated with live weight and carcass composition were determined using linear mixed models. The heaviest birth, preweaning, and weaning weights were associated with single born lambs (P < 0.001), however by postweaning, there was no difference observed in the weights of single and twin born lambs (P > 0.01). Breed class affected lamb live weight and carcass composition with terminal lambs weighing heaviest and having greater muscle depth than all other breed classes investigated (P < 0.001). Lambs born to first parity dams were consistently lighter, regardless of time of weighing (P < 0.001), while dams lambing for the first time as ewe lambs produced lighter lambs than those lambing for the first time as hoggets (P < 0.001). Greater heterosis coefficients (i.e., >90% and ≤100%) resulted in heavier lambs at weaning compared with lambs with lower levels of heterosis coefficients (P < 0.001). A heterosis coefficient class <10% resulted in lambs with greater muscle depth while recombination loss of <10% increased ultrasound fat depth (P < 0.001). Results from this study highlight the impact of multiple animal level factors on lamb live weight and carcass composition which will enable more accurate bio-economic models and genetic evaluations going forward.
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spelling pubmed-77589962021-01-05 Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population McGovern, Fiona Mary McHugh, Noirin Fitzmaurice, Shauna Pabiou, Thierry McDermott, Kevin Wall, Eamon Fetherstone, Nicola Transl Anim Sci Animal Genetics and Genomics Understanding the phenotypic factors that affect lamb live weight and carcass composition is imperative to generating accurate genetic evaluations and further enables implementation of functional management strategies. This study investigated phenotypic factors affecting live weight across the growing season and traits associated with carcass composition in lambs from a multibreed sheep population. Four live weight traits and two carcass composition traits were considered for analysis namely; birth, preweaning, weaning, and postweaning weight, and ultrasound muscle depth and fat depth. A total of 427,927 records from 159,492 lambs collected from 775 flocks between the years 2016 and 2019, inclusive were available from the Irish national sheep database. Factors associated with live weight and carcass composition were determined using linear mixed models. The heaviest birth, preweaning, and weaning weights were associated with single born lambs (P < 0.001), however by postweaning, there was no difference observed in the weights of single and twin born lambs (P > 0.01). Breed class affected lamb live weight and carcass composition with terminal lambs weighing heaviest and having greater muscle depth than all other breed classes investigated (P < 0.001). Lambs born to first parity dams were consistently lighter, regardless of time of weighing (P < 0.001), while dams lambing for the first time as ewe lambs produced lighter lambs than those lambing for the first time as hoggets (P < 0.001). Greater heterosis coefficients (i.e., >90% and ≤100%) resulted in heavier lambs at weaning compared with lambs with lower levels of heterosis coefficients (P < 0.001). A heterosis coefficient class <10% resulted in lambs with greater muscle depth while recombination loss of <10% increased ultrasound fat depth (P < 0.001). Results from this study highlight the impact of multiple animal level factors on lamb live weight and carcass composition which will enable more accurate bio-economic models and genetic evaluations going forward. Oxford University Press 2020-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7758996/ /pubmed/33409463 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/tas/txaa206 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society of Animal Science. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Animal Genetics and Genomics
McGovern, Fiona Mary
McHugh, Noirin
Fitzmaurice, Shauna
Pabiou, Thierry
McDermott, Kevin
Wall, Eamon
Fetherstone, Nicola
Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population
title Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population
title_full Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population
title_fullStr Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population
title_full_unstemmed Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population
title_short Phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an Irish multi-breed sheep population
title_sort phenotypic factors associated with lamb live weight and carcass composition measurements in an irish multi-breed sheep population
topic Animal Genetics and Genomics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7758996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33409463
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/tas/txaa206
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