EBV recording and flock size

Sandpit Farm said:

Your last point is a fair point. Oxford Downs were selling last year at £150 for a tup. It is hard to deny that, at that price, you could accept a drop in lamb performance compared to a £450-£500 recorded terminal sire tup.

On your extreme example though, surely the only effect that having a smaller flock would have is that those lambs' rankings may change more. In a management group of 2 (which I believe is too small), one has to be top 50% and one has to be bottom 50% - or one lamb is top and one lamb is bottom in YOUR FLOCK. More lambs in the same management group would add additional 'context' to a national breed or terminal sire evaluation, providing more accuracy and establishing that the position that they are ranked in the whole population is likely to be the position they will stay. That's how I see it.

I may be missing the point.

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Sandpit Farm said:

Your last point is a fair point. Oxford Downs were selling last year at £150 for a tup. It is hard to deny that, at that price, you could accept a drop in lamb performance compared to a £450-£500 recorded terminal sire tup.

On your extreme example though, surely the only effect that having a smaller flock would have is that those lambs' rankings may change more. In a management group of 2 (which I believe is too small), one has to be top 50% and one has to be bottom 50% - or one lamb is top and one lamb is bottom in YOUR FLOCK. More lambs in the same management group would add additional 'context' to a national breed or terminal sire evaluation, providing more accuracy and establishing that the position that they are ranked in the whole population is likely to be the position they will stay. That's how I see it.

I may be missing the point.

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andybk said:

I still say signet need a central progeny test for breeds , would iron out feeding management and flock size to a point , i know you need vast amounts of data to generate accurate ebvs , and this will always favour big flocks that have been in it a long time , but many ped flocks are sub 50 ewes . a central test could give a better loading for smaller breeders similar to CT scanning (in fact that could be included for best performing 10% )

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gatepost said:

You can record all the live data you want, but CT scanning of the ped lamb in other words seeing what it would be like hung up, and the recording of its offspring as carcases is the real game changer, because it gets us as close as you can sensibly get to the end product and how the genetics have performed in the real world , it is only a shame that it has taken so long for the industry to see it. Also it would appear that it will be a lot longer before a lot of pedigree breeders also see any relevance , but that's up to them.

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Ysgythan said:

Well, the original EBVs were developed in the 80s and 90s using slaughter data. Then they were killing the lambs they were scanning. Slaughter data from animals with one recorded parent is good, but not great.

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gatepost said:

It's a hell of lot better than no data,' shot in the dark breeding', or other wise known as 'Oh what pretty ears it must be good''

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Ysgythan said:

If you’re stabbing in the dark you need to be good with your hands.

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gatepost said:

something that comes with maturity, if you ever get the chance.

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