Predicting Milk Yield in Sheep Used for Dairying in Australia

It is necessary to identify traits that are simple to measure and correlated with milk yield to select ewes for dairying from existing populations of sheep in Australia. We studied 217 primiparous and 113 multiparous (second parity, n = 51; third parity, n = 40; and fourth parity, n = 22) East Friesian crossbred ewes, for 2 consecutive lactations, that were milked by machine following a period of suckling (24 to 28 d). We measured lamb growth, milk production, milk yield, and residual milk during early lactation (