TALDLONKTUP2
Member
It shouldn't be a matter or believe or not. Either the improvement is there to be seen or it isn'tAnd therein lies the 'divide' between those who believe recording works and those who don't. What you say is correct in that a large flock could do 'within flock' selection for a specific environment but how many terminal flocks are really that big to be able to make strong enough genetic gain based on maybe <100 ewes. If you add all of those smaller flocks up into a population of say 9000 ewes, you end up with a very strong dataset. Let's remember that all of those flocks have sheep that are recently or distantly related to sheep in other flocks.... it is through these relationships that we know how we can differentiate between environmental/management factors on performance and what is down to genetics. It certainly isn't voodoo.
As for relying on trust for the data.... you are correct. But who is really stupid enough to try to get away with skewing it? If you cheat for a year and then sell a high figured ram to another flock (bare in mind his accuracy figures would be poor as there would be no recorded progeny).... it won't perform! simple. You then get found out. If you have very little data on him (e.g. his parents are French imports) his figures will be corrected toward an average for the breed so he wouldn't look great. You can try to cheat but you end up wasting your own money only to get found out in the end and make no genetic progress in your own flock to boot.