Adjustment factors for lamb weaning weight

Abstract

Nine methods of adjusting lamb weaning weight for the effects of age-of-dam, sex, birth-rearing rank, and weaning age were compared. Evaluated several ways, the effectiveness of the methods did not differ very much. It is concluded that the best adjustment procedures are the combined additive and multiplicative, or multiplicative alone. An exception is adjustment for weaning age effects, which should be additive.

Keywords:

• animal breeding
• ewes
• lambs
• weaning weight
• environmental effects