Fibre medullation in Blackface lambs and hoggs

Abstract

A method has been described of assessing the average degree of medullation in fleece samples. This method combines information about the various fibre types and the proportion of each present in the sample, by assigning 100 fibres to classes with scores 1–5 according to the degree of medullation. A weighted mean score was determined, ten times this mean being defined as the ‘medullation index’. The index has been used for 2 years on samples taken from 2-month-old lambs and 14-month-old hoggs of the Blackface breed. Drawings of fibre types showed that the internal and external diameters and their ratio all increase with the score.The mean medullation index for the 2-month-old lambs in the 2 years was 25·6 and 24·8. The effects of sex and type of birth of lamb and age of dam were assessed by fitting constants, but their contribution to the total variance was very small. The regression of medullation on age of lamb when sampled was −0·11 units per day in both years, and was highly significant. Possible explanations for this decline of medullation are discussed.The mean medullation index for 14-month-old hoggs was 16·1 in both years. Estimate of correlation between lamb and hogg for the 2 years were + 0·45 and + 0·33. It is probable that variation in medullation within the fleece and in fibre shedding account for these low values.