Breeding a new belief in science

In terms of our sheep enterprise we have had a relatively good year. Lambing went well and we probably had more lambs running about than we have ever had in the past. The weather has been ideal for grass growth and as a result our first draws of fat lambs were exceptional.

It’s amazing how factors completely outwith our control have the biggest influence on productivity. I take small credit in thinking that I am finally getting good at the management and breeding of sheep.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t try to improve my flock in every way possible. The last few weeks have seen me on the hunt for new tups or rams. Successfully selecting males for breeding always seems to require far too much luck for my liking, not every purchase goes on to leave hundreds of quality lambs season after season. If they did I would happily pay thousands per animal.

A recent conversation got me wondering – why do sheep breeders, in the overwhelming majority, still rely on judging animals by the eye alone when there are tools available to us which potentially allow an insight into breeding traits of that animal?

Even if I am no expert in understanding Estimated Breeding Values (EBV), common sense says that where this information is available it should be utilised. Yet only one of my purchases this year has been made based upon figures.

Is the sheep livestock industry unique in ignoring this potential?

Dairy and pig producers surely wouldn’t have made such massive improvements in efficiency if data hadn’t been collected and analysed.

Yet for sheep many buyers will not take figures into consideration. A prominent breeder announced this week that he is giving up recording flock performance as it is simply not worth the cost and time when you consider the price he gets for his tups in comparison to non-recorded animals. You can see confirmation of this fact at most tups sales where, in general, overfed, unrecorded animals are the ones commanding top prices.

Yet I have a theory that sheep farming is very different to dairy farming and pig production. Figures give an indication of genetic merit over environmental and management factors but it is these environmental and management factors which play such a large part in sheep farming.

Every sheep on every farm faces different challenges, and lots of them, just because an animal thrives on one farm doesn’t mean it will thrive on another, so therefore does it not follow through that genetic merit under one system is not equal to that under another?

Perhaps for the dairy and pig industry environmental and management factors are more controlled and less subject to variation and thus genetic merit wins through.

My key objective is to produce in spec lambs as quickly and as efficiently as possible. I need sheep that can do this, sheep that can face all the challenges thrown at them on my farm and which can be productive for many years.

I am not sure that EBVS alone reflect this. Perhaps then, this is why we value our “eye” in terms of selection, rightly or wrongly we all think that we know what elements of an animal combine to ensure productivity on our own farms.

When it comes down to it, though, I suspect the biggest two factors contributing to the value of any animal are the person selling it, and the person buying – perhaps it is time to detach the farmer from the sheep and to get a bit more scientific.

Many sheep buyers will not take breeding data figures into consideration at market.