Pasture Pod

Tim W

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
Listened to it yesterday. Very interesting, liked Tim's view on what is enough money, which I tell myself I share ,every time I examine my financial position:confused:
@Tim W can you clarify how heritable worm resistance is please.

I stand to be corrected but last i checked ----
In UK recorded sheep populations heritability of FEC (which we use as a measure of worm resistance) is about 10%
In NZ they reckon they have heritability of 30% for FEC
Why the difference? I don't know but i suspect that running lambs up to higher mob FEC before doing individual counts may be something to do with it. The higher the counts the larger the variation in results and the easier to find high (and low ) performers ?
Looking back at my individual FEC for the last 6 years i find an average count of 2020 EPG but from recent data i know that most UK breeders that do FEC (& there aren't many) seem to average about 600 EPG which is no challenge at all IMO
I hope that if heritability were calculated just for data subsets with very high FEC challenges they would prove to be nearer 30%


There has been some UK work on using IgA saliva as a measurement for worm resistance but it wasn't much good so in the last few years AHDB , Lleyn breeders , Exlana have been trialling IgA serum as a measure instead
This looks to be an interesting way forward but it is a little too early to be confident ---further trials this year will hopefully confirm what will be the best option

@George C is Mr Worm geek and has a better grasp than me ----he even speaks in real farmer language rather than ''boffin lingo'' which is handy ---i'm sure he will correct me if i am completely off track?
 

George C

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Bath
I stand to be corrected but last i checked ----
In UK recorded sheep populations heritability of FEC (which we use as a measure of worm resistance) is about 10%
In NZ they reckon they have heritability of 30% for FEC
Why the difference? I don't know but i suspect that running lambs up to higher mob FEC before doing individual counts may be something to do with it. The higher the counts the larger the variation in results and the easier to find high (and low ) performers ?
Looking back at my individual FEC for the last 6 years i find an average count of 2020 EPG but from recent data i know that most UK breeders that do FEC (& there aren't many) seem to average about 600 EPG which is no challenge at all IMO
I hope that if heritability were calculated just for data subsets with very high FEC challenges they would prove to be nearer 30%


There has been some UK work on using IgA saliva as a measurement for worm resistance but it wasn't much good so in the last few years AHDB , Lleyn breeders , Exlana have been trialling IgA serum as a measure instead
This looks to be an interesting way forward but it is a little too early to be confident ---further trials this year will hopefully confirm what will be the best option

@George C is Mr Worm geek and has a better grasp than me ----he even speaks in real farmer language rather than ''boffin lingo'' which is handy ---i'm sure he will correct me if i am completely off track?

Just finished the podcast and it's a great listen.

Signet give us separate FEC EBVs for Strongyles (FEC S) and Nematodirus (FEC N) and calculate a heritability for each one. In the latest update they are FEC S 0.12 and FEC N 0.18.

Our FEC heritability has always been lower than those reported in NZ. It could well have something to do with the reasons Tim gives. The nature of their worm challenge may also be different with more haemonchus. Some UK flocks do struggle to get high enough mob samples for FEC testing. There are also reports of welfare issues on some farms at mob sample levels which don't seem to be a problem on other farms. I suspect that this due to a higher percentage of the more parasitic Teladorsagia circumcincta in their samples. There was a lot of variation between farms when we were involved in some speciation work. One of the advantages of the IgA work that we are involved with is that you don't have to have such high worm counts to get a meaningful result.

For anyone wanting a longer read about our work on FEC and IgA you can access a report on our EIP project on the Performance Recorded Lleyn Breeders website https://www.prlb.co.uk/latest-news/
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
@NZDan has done an episode it's some great sheep chat as you'd expect
 

TexelBen

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North Yorkshire
@NZDan has done an episode it's some great sheep chat as you'd expect
Bloody loved it!
 

Kernowkid

Member
Love the podcast. Bluetooth head phones on today listing to sone whilst lambing. NZ dans was a good listen, love hearing from people about the genetics side of things. Laughed when he said he would take nothing back to NZ from our way of doing it!
Murray’s one is a bloody good listen too. Some great advice on pasture management. I thought as well it was interesting when he said about agri inflation at 5%(this must of been a couple years ago) and how over ten years that’s 50%. And how the hardest thing to do sometimes to get the brain working and stop what you’re doing and think. Going to be plenty of that going on here with fert/fuel and general input prices going through the roof.
 
Love the podcast. Bluetooth head phones on today listing to sone whilst lambing. NZ dans was a good listen, love hearing from people about the genetics side of things. Laughed when he said he would take nothing back to NZ from our way of doing it!
Murray’s one is a bloody good listen too. Some great advice on pasture management. I thought as well it was interesting when he said about agri inflation at 5%(this must of been a couple years ago) and how over ten years that’s 50%. And how the hardest thing to do sometimes to get the brain working and stop what you’re doing and think. Going to be plenty of that going on here with fert/fuel and general input prices going through the roof.
There is plenty I've taken back over the years, that quote was from another well known Kiwi who was on The Pasture Pod, Michael was kind enough to bring it up.
Aye Murrays one is one of my favorites, along with Neil MacGowans.
 
Listened to it yesterday. Very interesting, liked Tim's view on what is enough money, which I tell myself I share ,every time I examine my financial position:confused:
@Tim W can you clarify how heritable worm resistance is please.
“ a holiday a year and being able to have a beer whenever you fancy one” or words to that effect, wasn’t it? Brilliant outlook, and one that I am trying to bring my Mrs around to!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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