Authors:
Australian Wool Innovation Limited and Meat and Livestock Australia

Date of Publication:
2013

Publication:
Visual Sheep Scores, Version 2 – 2013

Excerpt:
In 2007, following extensive industry consultation, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) & Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) developed the Visual Sheep Scores to:
• Provide the Australian sheep industry with a standardised set of visual assessment scores for the consistent description of important phenotypic traits of all breeds of sheep;
• Develop a quick and simple scoring system to help sheep classers and breeders select sheep on visually-assessed traits to accelerate genetic gain;
• Enable sheep breeders and classers to record and submit visual score data and genetic information to Sheep Genetics to progress development of across-flock Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) for visually-assessed traits; and
• Enable researchers to estimate the heritability of visually-assessed sheep traits, and to measure their relationships, if any, on important production traits such as fleece weight, fibre diameter, growth rate and body weight.

Read the rest of the article: https://www.wool.com/globalassets/start/on-farm-research-and-development/sheep-health-welfare-and-productivity/sheep-breeding/visual-sheep-scores/2013_visual_sheep_scores_commercial_awi_mla.pdf