Records pay dividends

Roger Marshall, of Kelso, is using a full suite of advanced genetic techniques.

01-10-2009 | Marie Taylor

Conway River farmers Tim and Sue Anderson have been recording information about their rams for quite a while.

That could be why their flock at Sheep Improvement Ltd (SIL) is No 2.

The North Canterbury breeders sell up to 500 rams, predominantly Perendales, from the Mt Guardian stud begun in the 1960s and performance recorded since early in the1970s, initially with the national flock-recording scheme.

Tim is an enthusiast for SIL's work, which he has built on with DNA parenting Shepherd and WormSTAR evaluations from Pfizer Animal Genetics.

While DNA parenting is expensive, you appreciate it at lambing, he says. That's because their 1050 recorded ewes are left to lamb themselves, mimicking a commercial farm. "There is no interference at lambing, which can distort the true mothering ability of the ewe."

Another advantage is being able to multiple-sire mate which compresses the lambing interval and reduces the number of paddocks needed.

Tim says AbacusBio Animate is a wonderful invention. "It allows us to avoid any in-breeding which is absolutely essential."

At Wharetoa in South Otago, Garth and Chris Shaw learned the fundamentals of performance recording in 1975 when they started breeding Coopworths. As time has gone by, they have adopted new technologies as each has come available.

They've used these principles to help develop several different lines of rams, with the main focus of putting more meat on sheep, but not forgetting the fundamentals of fertility, growth and disease resistance.

These include Coopworth, Texel, their own Meatmaker breed which is a Poll Dorset Texel cross, and a maternal composite which is a Coopworth Meatmaker cross.

The Shaws combine SIL figures with eye-muscle scanning data from their scanner Rowan Farmer, of Mosgiel. Then they send the top sons of their top sire rams to the CT scanner at Invermay.

While it costs around $360/ram, it speeds up the rate of genetic gain, Garth says.

They also use DNA testing for the Myomax gene on their Meat Makers and Texel rams.

But the greatest benefit is being able to build on the SIL figures, Garth says.

He describes himself as computer illiterate, and really values being able to capture data in the paddock with a Gene Capture data logger he fixed to the motorbike.

"It's a marvellous machine. We tag 2000 lambs at birth and I do it without pen and paper.

"I have enough confidence to pull the disk out at the end of lambing and send it to Julia Aspinall, of Genetic Gains, in Invercargill."

Julia produced these loggers with specially written software for her breeders using SIL in 2001.

The Shaws also use their production records, all of which are on computer, to sell their 350-400 rams a year at their on-farm auction.

Near Taumarunui Richard and Jackie Porritt use SIL and the AbacusBio Animate service on their 500 performance recorded Romney flock.

Richard says they've been making about 2% genetic gain a year on the SIL index since they began recording with SIL in 1988. "We're gaining all the time."

They have used DNA testing a little because they are in the third year of a lamb survival trial with AgResearch scientist Julie Everett-Hicks.

Marton farmer Roger Marshall, from Kelso, has been recording rams since 1957. His composites have been fully recorded since they were first developed in 1990, following the release of imported sheep from quarantine.

Now Kelso uses a full suite of advanced genetic techniques, working closely with Peter Fennessy and Peter Amer of AbacusBio who developed Animate.

Kelso uses DNA identification, testing for Myomax and WormSTAR throughout the flock.

They also work with Progressive Meats and Alliance to identify superior sire performance in yields and grading.

The flock is tagged electronically, and wands are used to read information from the tags. At selling time full information and SIL indexes are available for each ram. Each year 300 to 400 Ranger terminal sire rams are sold, as well as 400 top-ranking maternal Kelso two-tooth rams.

Robert Peacock, at Orari Gorge in South Canterbury, uses a raft of technologies to produce more than 300 Romney and first cross Romney rams for sale each year.

He's on the SIL system with a modified high-performance index and uses Animate Advance to maximise genetic gain. Although he hasn't done much DNA testing, he did test sire rams for both footrot resistance and cold tolerance, with good results. He gets WormSTAR results for the sire rams from the WormFEC programme.

All the ram lambs have been eye-muscle scanned for more than 10 years, and this year he will be progeny testing for actual meat yield. Using SIL protocols for worm resilience measurements has been a huge step forward, he says.

A group of 12 ram lambs are identified, weighed and drenched every three weeks to ensure they have no worms, running with undrenched ram lambs.

"When some of the lambs visibly start to struggle, after about two months, all the lambs are weighed and individual FEC samples taken. Any lambs whose weight gain is below 80% of the drenched lambs get identified as a different mob, Drench 1. A few weeks later we weigh again, and if any others drop below the 80% they become Drench 2. Then three weeks later, if any more drop below they become Drench 3."

Those ram lambs still gaining more than 80% of the drenched lambs' weight become the Drench Zero mob.

Robert was pleased to find that 100 days after weaning they still had 30% of their ram lambs growing faster than the drenched group.

Marton farmers David, Maureen and son Cameron Smith, of Holly Farm, say their Studfax recording system meshes well with SIL.

"We can weigh the stock, plug the scales into the computer, and then electronically send the information to SIL and get their report back within hours."

Holly Farm sells 400 Romneys a year and has been with SIL since its inception, working through Ken Moore's bureau, NZ Performance Recording Services, in Christchurch.

They've spent a lot of time as part of the Lamb Survival project with Julie Everett-Hicks of AgResearch Invermay. This research is used for future DNA testing.

One of their next moves is to swap rams with other breeders so they can link sires and put rams into the Meat and Wool New Zealand central progeny test.

This is used to identify top-producing rams in NZ, and more importantly, to genetically link different breeding groups.

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