The phenotypic variance for fibre diameter also increased with age (Table 4) while the
heritability increased from 0.60 at yearling to 0.68 at 3 year old adult age and then plateaued
thereafter. The genetic correlations between yearling and adult performance were moderate to high
ranging from 0.92 to 0.74 at 6 years of age. Hogget traits were more highly correlated with adult
traits ranging from 0.91 to 0.79. The results again confirm that assessments of key fleece traits
made on young animals are good genetic predictors of adult performance. The adult expressions
were all very highly correlated and can be treated as the same trait genetically. The phenotypic
correlations were generally moderate to high and slightly lower than the genetic correlations