
%0 Journal Article
%A Cockrem, F 
%A Rae, AL 
%T Studies of face cover in the New Zealand Romney Marsh sheep.  I. The relationships between face cover, wool blindness, and productive characters.
%J Australian Journal of Agricultural Research
%D 1966/12/01
%V 17
%N 6
%P 967-974
%K 
%R https://doi.org/10.1071/AR9660967
%U https://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/AR9660967 
%X Forty open-faced and 80 woolly-faced Romney sheep were selected from a flock of about 500 18-month-old ewes so as to represent extremes of face cover. Half the woolly-faced group were left wool-blind and the remainder were wigged at regular intervals. No differences in liveweight, fertility, or fleece weight resulted from the wigging treatment. Over the subsequent 5 years the open-faced sheep had 30&#37; more live lambs and averaged 0.3 1b greater clean fleece weight annually than the wool-blind and wigged sheep. The open-faced ewes had the greater liveweight over the whole period. It was concluded that wool blindness was not the basic cause of the observed differences between open- and woolly-faced sheep. 
