Performance recorded sheep.

JD-Kid

Member
Running a pure Nch Cheviot flock, I would like to be selling draft ewes at 4 crop which should leave good value in them, but keep a portion of the very best of them another year to breed tups from, using them before selling them as 2/3 shear.

These ewes would obviously still be A1 on their feet/udder/teeth and look the part, but with a lifetime of simple but accurate performance recording behind them you could be sure that you really were keeping the best of them.

Id love to be able to look at each of them and know exactly how many and what weight of lambs they had weaned each year. All I would need to do this would be a dna tag put in at marking and a weight taken at weaning, it would be a lot of extra info for next to zero extra effort
yea know were yer coming from on hills here and would be good to ID the best ewes but DNA is a bit out of reach price wise
do use EID alot with hog scanning 2 and 4 tooth scanning avg of all scans etc etc lambs mostly kept out of ewes scanning 1.75% avg
looking at records ewes that had single as 2 and 4 tooth tend to be lower all there life so going to look at them harder looking at records the 2's single/single vs 3 or 4 single /twin ..twin/twin is about 30+% diffrence in scanning but you are guessing realy if they rased just a single or nothing come weaning
from what I have seen hogget lambing not realy much diffrence in outcome with hoggets that did not get to weight to mate there life time scan avg same as ones that did 2 and 4 tooth avg showed up more
but yes would be great to know what rams leaving best off spring weight gains etc etc thats were DNA testing would come in
 
@CopperBeech
In our 4th year of perfromance recording now and looking at expanding further. We lamb all ewes outside and do it on a nucleus flock of 500 ewes out of a total flock of 5000, would like to get it into 1000+. We are very short staffed with only 3 of us to do all of the lambing. The only way we can do it is by DNA and fetal ageing so as to be as hands off as possible, ewes can be left on the hill to lamb as unassisted as possible. So if labour was a shortage i would recommend this system, any"birth site" work like tagging/weighing/spray etc would eat up your day without realising and lead to more losses elsewhere on the farm
 
@CopperBeech
In our 4th year of perfromance recording now and looking at expanding further. We lamb all ewes outside and do it on a nucleus flock of 500 ewes out of a total flock of 5000, would like to get it into 1000+. We are very short staffed with only 3 of us to do all of the lambing. The only way we can do it is by DNA and fetal ageing so as to be as hands off as possible, ewes can be left on the hill to lamb as unassisted as possible. So if labour was a shortage i would recommend this system, any"birth site" work like tagging/weighing/spray etc would eat up your day without realising and lead to more losses elsewhere on the farm
What breed are you recording?
 

Old Tup

Member
Innovis would surely be another, with their nucleus supposed to be 1000 ewes lambing outside?

Very secretive operation though, so likely as forthcoming with info on that as they are with their ebvs.🤐
I would imagine they rely on having plenty of lambing staff and data loggers that can be synced (using Border Software iirc).
Looking over the fence at one of Innovis’s star performers…..
Lambing time is unreal….
The amount of temporary staff shipped in is unreal….
Rest of the year…..day upon day is taken up weighing …back scanning…etc etc
Innovis geneticists analyse the data harvested and select the best suited rams to progress the flock and its performance….
Trouble is watching the other end of the season….the product consistently underperforms £sss wise lambs from simple commercial flocks using a straightforward Terminal Ram.
When it comes right down to the nitty gritty ….£sss are what matter ….yes the cost of production is a factor….but looking over the fence…the simple commercial guys are winning hands down.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
I would have thought that it would be pretty obvious that the more head you record, the better the data would be.
There's recording and recording. Isn't it a good idea to have a more hands off b flock, either bred pure or put to a terminal sire?

You can still score the ewes in the b flock, so if they behave and produce a good run of lambs, they are exactly the sort of sheep you would want to breed from; so you promote them up to the a flock to get some daughters out of them.
 

gwi1890

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North wales
I’ve found with the texel society there seems to alot of “index chasers” I went to see one of the top performance recorded flocks in the UK few years back and when looking through the tups the owner was reading tags right left and centre and shouting “index 387” “index 270” and so on when I looked at the actual individual ebv’s and measurements from scanning they weren’t anything special , most were in the top 1% on growth rates and litter size which means little considering the feed and pmsg involved.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I’ve found with the texel society there seems to alot of “index chasers” I went to see one of the top performance recorded flocks in the UK few years back and when looking through the tups the owner was reading tags right left and centre and shouting “index 387” “index 270” and so on when I looked at the actual individual ebv’s and measurements from scanning they weren’t anything special , most were in the top 1% on growth rates and litter size which means little considering the feed and pmsg involved.

The whole idea of ebvs is that it takes out the management effects of feeding, or the early lambing date that sponges and PMSG will give you. High levels of feeding will give you high actual weights but not necessarily high scan weight ebvs. Similarly, the ebvs will highlight superior genetics while not having massive 'actual' measurements, which can obviously be heavily influenced by feeding management.
As an example, there were Charollais lambs at our Premier Sale that had scan weights of 90kg+ and muscle depths of up to 44mm, but very average ebvs, showing that the performance was entirely down to good management.
We don't get anywhere near those actual measurements now everything is March born and forage fed, yet our ebvs are considerably higher across the board.

I do agree that some breeders, in all breeds, have chased index. It's just a useful breeding tool, to be used alongside the stockman's eye & hands. Nothing more.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
The whole idea of ebvs is that it takes out the management effects of feeding, or the early lambing date that sponges and PMSG will give you. High levels of feeding will give you high actual weights but not necessarily high scan weight ebvs. Similarly, the ebvs will highlight superior genetics while not having massive 'actual' measurements, which can obviously be heavily influenced by feeding management.
As an example, there were Charollais lambs at our Premier Sale that had scan weights of 90kg+ and muscle depths of up to 44mm, but very average ebvs, showing that the performance was entirely down to good management.
We don't get anywhere near those actual measurements now everything is March born and forage fed, yet our ebvs are considerably higher across the board.

I do agree that some breeders, in all breeds, have chased index. It's just a useful breeding tool, to be used alongside the stockman's eye & hands. Nothing more.
It also helps to avoid sheep that would have died without shepherding.
 

Agrivator

Member
Looking over the fence at one of Innovis’s star performers…..
Lambing time is unreal….
The amount of temporary staff shipped in is unreal….
Rest of the year…..day upon day is taken up weighing …back scanning…etc etc
Innovis geneticists analyse the data harvested and select the best suited rams to progress the flock and its performance….
Trouble is watching the other end of the season….the product consistently underperforms £sss wise lambs from simple commercial flocks using a straightforward Terminal Ram.
When it comes right down to the nitty gritty ….£sss are what matter ….yes the cost of production is a factor….but looking over the fence…the simple commercial guys are winning hands down.

Says it all really. During the last 50 years, I don't know of any peer-reviewed cases where recording and selection in any commercial pure flock has resulted in overall breed improvement.

Poor stockmen record.
Good stockmen observe, and know how and when to buy in stock tups: and are willing to pay over the odds now and again without going over the top.
 
Says it all really. During the last 50 years, I don't know of any peer-reviewed cases where recording and selection in any commercial pure flock has resulted in overall breed improvement.

Poor stockmen record.
Good stockmen observe, and know how and when to buy in stock tups: and are willing to pay over the odds now and again without going over the top.
Really good stockmen observe AND record. The two don't need to be mutually exclusive.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
I'm not sure that's true. That type of management is evident in recorded and unrecorded flocks.
What I meant was, if you have had to keep one alive which would have died, for instance, then it's a good idea to avoid that animal for breeding, however well it performs afterwards.

I also think you are more likely to get survivor types out of a big flock than a small one. But it's still a trait that can be overlooked.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Says it all really. During the last 50 years, I don't know of any peer-reviewed cases where recording and selection in any commercial pure flock has resulted in overall breed improvement.

Poor stockmen record.
Good stockmen observe, and know how and when to buy in stock tups: and are willing to pay over the odds now and again without going over the top.
Bit of a silly thing to say. At the end of a busy day's lambing it's hard to remember the run of the mill easy lambers from mid morning who you hardly notice, when those are exactly the sheep you want to breed from.
 
Last edited:

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Says it all really. During the last 50 years, I don't know of any peer-reviewed cases where recording and selection in any commercial pure flock has resulted in overall breed improvement.

Poor stockmen record.
Good stockmen observe, and know how and when to buy in stock tups: and are willing to pay over the odds now and again without going over the top.
What about shepherdlessers?
 
Says it all really. During the last 50 years, I don't know of any peer-reviewed cases where recording and selection in any commercial pure flock has resulted in overall breed improvement.

Poor stockmen record.
Good stockmen observe, and know how and when to buy in stock tups: and are willing to pay over the odds now and again without going over the top.
You really are a tit 😂
 

MRT

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't know of any peer-reviewed cases where recording and selection in any commercial pure flock has resulted in overall breed improvement.
Can you link me the peer reviewed papers showing they have gotten worse or stayed the same?
 

MRT

Member
Livestock Farmer
Best case study is probably NZ, where output per ewe has risen significantly over the past 40 years through a combination of improved genetics and grazing management.
Is it V V V reviewed
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