Temperament and its heritability in Corriedale and Merino lambs

摘要: Temperament can be defined as the fearfulness and reactivity of an animal in response to humans strange, novel or threatening environments. The productive performance is affected by its temperament, selection calm animals might improve their adaptation farming environment handling, well productivity. temperament was measured lambs two breeds sheep Uruguay. effects dam’s age, type birth, age lamb contemporary group (CG; belonging same year, flock, sex rearing group) on heritability were estimated with a Bayesian analysis using Gibbs sampling. Overall, 4962 Corriedale 2952 Merino from 13 farms tested. isolation box test, isolating inside for 30 s, recording vibrations produced movements. average score (±s.e.m.) 24.7 (±0.23) that 36.8 (±0.45). not associated birth lamb’s age. There no relevant differences agitation between born 2010 2011. mean distribution possible values (±s.d.) 0.18 (±0.05) 0.31 (±0.06) Merino. likelihood greater than 0.15 exceeded 70% 90% Uruguay moderately heritable. It related lambs; however, it some aspect CG.