A good, simple description of the genetics of scrapie can be read at http://www.pipevet.com/articles/dna_resistance.htm
There has never been a reported case of scrapie in hair sheep. Blackbelly sheep may have a natural resistance to scrapie. New information continues to be collected regarding the importance of genetic resistance to scrapie, and official opinions change regularly. Scrapie is primarily a disease of black-faced sheep. I had my rams genotyped a couple years ago. They tested QQ, as have everyone else's blackbellies that I've talked to. I'm not particularly worried, and I won't be using scrapie resistance as a selection factor in my flock. The last thing that Barbados Breeders need to be doing to their gene pool is selecting against a genetic factor that, to date, has not been detrimental to the breed and to which our sheep might already be naturally resistant. We have more important things to select for--and against. I'd say the same for American Blackbelly breeders, too. Carol At 11:50 AM 2/1/2006 -0600, you wrote: >Hello all, > >While reading some stuff on hairsheep, I ran across some Katahdin people >talking about their sheep being RR and QR and QQ. I read on to discover >these letters have something to do with the sheep's genetic resistance to >getting scrapie if exposed? Not really sure on that... but apparently RR is >the most desired. > >ANYWAY, have these tests been run on any Barbados sheep that anyone is aware >of? _______________________________________________ This message is from the blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info http://lists.blackbellysheep.info/listinfo.cgi/blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info
