A farmer wants to produce sheep with finer wool. how could he do this by selective breeding?
Answers
Explanation:
If he wants to produce the finest wool he will raise Cashmere goats but they make mostly lower value hair and less that pound of the fine wool that is so prized. It would take a good deal of research and possibly 10’s of years of experiments to tell if there was more potential to improve the goats than there is Merino sheep. The first thing to do would be to find the rams you want and sequence there genome and she which one is more diverse. The more diverse the genome the more room to improve the breed without bring in outside genetics.
Once he decides on a breed he needs to see if there is market for what he wants to breed and develop index for both the ewes and bucks. Wool diameter and fleece wight would have the most weight in the index. Reproductive performance, soundness of feet and legs and any detrimental repressive gene would cull the sheep. Some value should be given to the dollar value of lambs as the swing on the abattoirs hook or the grocers meat case. A long breeding life has value.