Opportunities and challenges in meat production from sheep

In response to a request for a viewpoint paper to be included in this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture, this paper considers several aspects of meat production from sheep, some of which received particular attention in the two large-scale experiments described in papers in this Issue. Large experiments such as these, when combined with the involvement of diverse groups of scientists with complementary areas of interest and expertise, have enabled many aspects of the overall topic of sheep meat production to be investigated simultaneously. As a result, interrelationships between numerous characteristics of lambs and hoggets have been evaluated within a range of genotypes both within and between breeds and at several ages. This paper focuses on the nature of some relationships between growth characteristics and meat quality, the advantages and possible disadvantages of having large numbers of animals in an experiment and the apparently anomalous nature of information available on the effects of animal age on the tenderness of meat from lambs and sheep.