Breeds of New Zealand sheep - as recorded or by genomic prediction.

The breed composition of the New Zealand sheep industry was examined to help understand the nature of this industry and observe recent trends. The maternal breeds of the New Zealand sheep meat industry are predominantly Romney with Coopworth, Perendale and Texel also common. The last 15 years has seen increased Perendale and Texel and decreased Coopworth numbers and a trend towards composites in ram breeding flocks. A genomic prediction method (gBLUP) was used to predict breed composition. Predicted breed composition was found to be similar to recorded breed for animals with similar breed composition to those in the training set used, and therefore is a useful method of verifying breed recording or predicting breed in unrecorded animals. Genomic prediction tended to over-predict breed components for animals of breed types not included in the training set.