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Australia’s sheep industry has already achieved climate neutrality, according to CSIRO. One of the keys has been the investment in, and widespread adoption of, genetic science to breed traits into flocks that simultaneously reduce management, labour and costs while boosting productivity and animal welfare.
SUSTAINABLE practices and an increased focus on animal welfare are opening up new markets to the sheep industry and breeding values are leading the way.
Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) are an important tool to assist producers to use genetics to accelerate productivity. They allow selection and improvement of key production traits including reproduction, fleece weight and growth, as well as those relating to eating quality such as intramuscular fat, while putting pressure on important health and welfare traits including worm resistance and breech wrinkle.
ASBVs help producers manage the antagonistic relationships that exist between some of these traits – for example, merino breeders have been able to manage the relationship between breech wrinkle and fleece weight to make gains in both traits.
Meat & Livestock Australia’s Sheep Genetics service delivers the genetic evaluation for the Australian sheep and goat industry through MERINOSELECT, LAMBPLAN and KIDPLAN (delivered as estimated breeding values) evaluations. These evaluations allow producers to compare and benchmark the genetic merit of animals from flocks across Australia, to better inform selection and purchase decisions.
Selection indexes combine important ASBV traits into one number and are a useful way to rank animals quickly and easily. It’s also important to consider the individual ASBVs that make up the index to ensure the animal meets breeders’ objectives, alongside structural and type assessment.
Seedstock breeders have shown that by measuring the traits of interest, they can manage these correlations and make gains in important traits simultaneously.
The graph shows the progress MERINOSELECT breeders have made in improving fleece weight (YCFW), while reducing breech wrinkle (EBWR), or breeding for a plainer breech.
Sheep Genetics has released a series of traits that break down the components of reproduction for merino and maternal breeders. Previously, the ASBV used to select for improved reproduction was a single trait – number of lambs weaned (NLW).
However, many events occur throughout the reproductive cycle, from joining through pregnancy, to lambing through to weaning. Now merino and maternal breeders have access to component traits for reproduction, allowing for more targeted genetic gain.
The new traits include:
● Conception (CON): Did the ewe conceive? Sires with higher CON will produce daughters that have a higher conception rate.
● Litter size (LS): How many lambs were born? Sires with higher LS will produce daughters that give birth to more lambs.
● Ewe-rearing ability (ERA): How successfully did the ewe rear her litter? Sires with higher ERA will produce daughters that rear more of their litter.
● Weaning rate (WR): The number of lambs weaned per ewe joined. These additional traits give breeders the ability to target specific parts of the reproduction cycle.
For commercial producers, genetic progress over time can be assessed through sire team tracking, or tools like Flock Profile, which provide an indication of the average genetic merit of the flock.
Many producers are tapping into the benefits of better genetics by buying rams from breeders using ASBVs. Producers who pursue genetic progress find themselves accelerating the performance of their flocks in such a way that their initial investment more than pays for itself.
MLA’s genetics hub is a one-stop shop for resources to help build understanding of breeding values and other genetic tools. Breeders can choose their enterprise to get targeted information on using genetics in their flocks at genetics.mla.com.au.
