Figure 1.
Litter size records for Hyper-prolific (n = 41), Lleyn (n = 32) and Galway (n = 41) ewes (representing 152, 68 and 113 litter size records, respectively) selected for the study.
In the case of the Lleyn a litter size of 3 includes 5 cases with “at least 3″ offspring per lambing.
Table 1.
Incidence of carriers of mutations in BMP15 and GDF9 among selected Lleyn and Hyper-prolific (HP) ewes from commercial flocks.
Table 2.
Details on heterozygous carriers among Hyper-prolific ewes in commercial flocks.
Table 3.
Estimates of gene frequency for mutations in GDF9 and BMP15 in a sample of 333 Lleyn rams representing 140 flocks in Britain and Ireland in 2009.
Table 4.
Summary of sequence data for complete coding regions of BMP15 and GDF9 for animals of various genotypes at these loci and representing four breed groups.
Figure 2.
Breeds examined as possible sources of the mutations in BMP15 (FecXG, FecXB) and GDF9 (FecGH) in Belclare and Cambridge sheep and sources identified (indicated by mutations associated with arrows).
The Hyper-prolific ewes served as a proxy for the High Fertility line used in the development of the Belclare.