Stock selection criteria

[Old Tip]

Giving some thought to what attributes you would measure when selecting stock on an extensive system.
Signet etc measure stuff that can only really be measured if you have the animals inside regularly or close at hand. They also seem obsessed with growth so encourage hard feeding.
I and others who run extensive systems which require easy birth, minimum intervention, thrift from forage, compensatory growth etc need a different approach I feel.
Currently I concentrate on the female genetics and only retain animals that thrive on my system with no problems but I don’t have any actual data other than what is in my head and a steady improvement in performance and a reduction in costs.

So be interesting to see what others think and if anyone has experience of different recording methods.

OT

 

[topground]

If it ain’t broke why fix it?

 

[Old Tip]

If it ain’t broke why fix it?

Just reading @Samcowman thread and the work Phepson Angus and others are doing.
Government and the Colleges love data and there is very little available for extensive systems which to me are the way forward.

 

[sheepdogtrail]

Giving some thought to what attributes you would measure when selecting stock on an extensive system.
Signet etc measure stuff that can only really be measured if you have the animals inside regularly or close at hand. They also seem obsessed with growth so encourage hard feeding.
I and others who run extensive systems which require easy birth, minimum intervention, thrift from forage, compensatory growth etc need a different approach I feel.
Currently I concentrate on the female genetics and only retain animals that thrive on my system with no problems but I don’t have any actual data other than what is in my head and a steady improvement in performance and a reduction in costs.

So be interesting to see what others think and if anyone has experience of different recording methods.

OT

1. Do they have great feet.
2. Do they wean their body weight in lambs in 6 months.
3. Do they still have their pre-breeding condition at weaning.
4. Do they behave.
5. Do they require more of my time compared to their contemporaries.

That would tell me they have very good parasite resistance and resilience. They are strong milkers who require very little from me other than water, pasture and fencing.

As it is now I spend less than 30 minutes a year with my hands on my sheep and that includes shearing and vaccinations. I record as I have a closed herd but it is for my own records. That data helps me a great deal at tupping time as it allows me to train my eyes on the particulars that I might have missed if I could not go back in my records and see who is who so I can keep my IBC down to a acceptable level for me.

To me, it seems like you have a good system for getting the lambs to weaning but would like to improve your lambs finishing time. What are you doing now to finish lambs?

 

[egbert]

Giving some thought to what attributes you would measure when selecting stock on an extensive system.
Signet etc measure stuff that can only really be measured if you have the animals inside regularly or close at hand. They also seem obsessed with growth so encourage hard feeding.
I and others who run extensive systems which require easy birth, minimum intervention, thrift from forage, compensatory growth etc need a different approach I feel.
Currently I concentrate on the female genetics and only retain animals that thrive on my system with no problems but I don’t have any actual data other than what is in my head and a steady improvement in performance and a reduction in costs.

So be interesting to see what others think and if anyone has experience of different recording methods.

OT

ah...that ethereal nirvana, finding the perfect tup/bull/cut of ewes/damline of coos.

I've been around the block a time or two, and it's been the study of greater minds than mine.
In the end, for fresh tups/bulls etc, I tend to go to folk I trust, and whose stock/direction of travel I have faith in.
I'll also pick up a tup lamb off a feral cut of yows if I can....I find mother nature is a far better judge of stock than most of us!

Let me know when you've found the answer....we'll party!

 

[ladycrofter]

A favourite topic! I agree, we also retain hoggs by eye, with some consideration for the dam. Ewes - they give us a reasonable lamb. I'm not sure there's really any other way on the hill. It seems pointless to me selecting Blackface ewes, for example, by weaning weight of the lamb. There's so much more involved in getting there. Good fleece, good feet, canny and good mothering, good milk. I think the temptation of trying to performance record, like the pedigrees do, mean you focus on the few things that you get, at the expense of the many things that make it work. And you'd expect weaning weight of a lamb to decline with ewe age anyway.

It's more of a yes or no thing for us.
We cast after 5 crop, any feet problems, fly strike; no second chances for empties since we started toxo vacc'ing. They must come off the hill before tupping in very good fettle.
We are on high north facing hills, crawling with tick, fluke, etc. because we're overrun with deer.

An indicator for us now is to look at summer survival rates, which is something that's easy to measure. IMO we should lose nothing after marking.

We don't weigh, and probably never will. I think this circles back to what the OP said. If we have a good lamb to sell, I don't care if it's a few kg one way or the other. The same goes for ewes, a very plain ewe can make good lambs so there's really nothing quantitative about her herself to easily measure. And there's certainly no guarantee that she's passed it on!

The problem with all of this is, as we found out, you can't buy-in hill replacements reliably. We are chucking out 10 who (allegedly) came off hills as hoggs and were an absolute disaster, one live decent lamb between the lot of them. We will never buy replacements again. As @Old Tip says, it's very hard to measure the things that matter on the hill.

 

[egbert]

A favourite topic! I agree, we also retain hoggs by eye, with some consideration for the dam. Ewes - they give us a reasonable lamb. I'm not sure there's really any other way on the hill. It seems pointless to me selecting Blackface ewes, for example, by weaning weight of the lamb. There's so much more involved in getting there. Good fleece, good feet, canny and good mothering, good milk. I think the temptation of trying to performance record, like the pedigrees do, mean you focus on the few things that you get, at the expense of the many things that make it work. And you'd expect weaning weight of a lamb to decline with ewe age anyway.

It's more of a yes or no thing for us.
We cast after 5 crop, any feet problems, fly strike; no second chances for empties since we started toxo vacc'ing. They must come off the hill before tupping in very good fettle.
We are on high north facing hills, crawling with tick, fluke, etc. because we're overrun with deer.

An indicator for us now is to look at summer survival rates, which is something that's easy to measure. IMO we should lose nothing after marking.

We don't weigh, and probably never will. I think this circles back to what the OP said. If we have a good lamb to sell, I don't care if it's a few kg one way or the other. The same goes for ewes, a very plain ewe can make good lambs so there's really nothing quantitative about her herself to easily measure. And there's certainly no guarantee that she's passed it on!

The problem with all of this is, as we found out, you can't buy-in hill replacements reliably. We are chucking out 10 who (allegedly) came off hills as hoggs and were an absolute disaster, one live decent lamb between the lot of them. We will never buy replacements again. As @Old Tip says, it's very hard to measure the things that matter on the hill.

Without fail, the best tups and bulls are retained homebred ones for us.
And I try to select tups off ewes I like, rather than the best looking lamb.

 

[Guleesh]

Big attribute here that I require, but can see isn't a problem for that many other sheep keepers, is that the sheep settle down and heft onto the hill properly. Tis rather pointless having the best performing ewe imaginable if she's miles away, on somebody elses ground.

 

[Old Tip]

Big attribute here that I require, but can see isn't a problem for that many other sheep keepers, is that the sheep settle down and heft onto the hill properly. Tis rather pointless having the best performing ewe imaginable if she's miles away, on somebody elses ground.

Too true, I also don’t want anything but single lambs, twins are a nuisance, different horses for different corses as they say

 

[Y Fan Wen]

Too true, I also don’t want anything but single lambs, twins are a nuisance, different horses for different corses as they say

Any ewe I have to handle at lambing gets tagged as a problem, successfully lambed or not. I do nothing to encourage prolificacy but the twin percentage still creeps up passing 20% this year. Maybe I should give up scanning!

 

[neilo]

Giving some thought to what attributes you would measure when selecting stock on an extensive system.
Signet etc measure stuff that can only really be measured if you have the animals inside regularly or close at hand. They also seem obsessed with growth so encourage hard feeding.
I and others who run extensive systems which require easy birth, minimum intervention, thrift from forage, compensatory growth etc need a different approach I feel.
Currently I concentrate on the female genetics and only retain animals that thrive on my system with no problems but I don’t have any actual data other than what is in my head and a steady improvement in performance and a reduction in costs.

So be interesting to see what others think and if anyone has experience of different recording methods.

OT

Your comment about Signet is tosh. My Charollais flock is often the top ranked flock on Signet figures and, if not, always very near it. We do that despite lambing in March, not feeding any creep whatsoever, or feeding hard feed after.
We probably have more fall by the wayside than some, but better they do so here than after sale imo.
The Signet BLUP system will show those that excel on any given system, and allow comparison between flocks on different systems. It certainly works to identify genetics that perform, or otherwise, but does not identify genetics with functional traits that stockmen should be culling out, or cosmetic traits like Bonny heads or teardrop eyes.

However, in a commercial flock situation, selecting for their own improvement, I would (& do) pick those ewe lambs that perform best on the simplest of measures at weaning, but use recorded genetics for their sires.

 

[Old Tip]

Your comment about Signet is tosh. My Charollais flock is often the top ranked flock on Signet figures and, if not, always very near it. We do that despite lambing in March, not feeding any creep whatsoever, or feeding hard feed after.
We probably have more fall by the wayside than some, but better they do so here than after sale imo.
The Signet BLUP system will show those that excel on any given system, and allow comparison between flocks on different systems. It certainly works to identify genetics that perform, or otherwise, but does not identify genetics with functional traits that stockmen should be culling out, or cosmetic traits like Bonny heads or teardrop eyes.

However, in a commercial flock situation, selecting for their own improvement, I would (& do) pick those ewe lambs that perform best on the simplest of measures at weaning, but use recorded genetics for their sires.

Which bit is Tosh, if it’s the feeding bit you must be very unusual from my experience of cattle and sheep

 

[neilo]

Which bit is Tosh, if it’s the feeding bit you must be very unusual from my experience of cattle and sheep

Yes, the feeding bit. Signet BLUP identifies genetics that perform (but not necessarily in the looks/type/style department), assuming the stockman has done their part in culling out functional faults of course.

It’s a useful additional tool, but not one to be used exclusively imo.

 

[Henarar]

My Charollais flock is often the top ranked flock on Signet figures and, if not, always very near it. We do that despite lambing in March, not feeding any creep whatsoever, or feeding hard feed after.

Do you sell breeding animals to other people that record and also feed ?

 

[neilo]

Do you sell breeding animals to other people that record and also feed ?

Yes, and their ebvs generally stand up well under that different management regime.

It doesn’t always work the other way round though, as some animals coming out of those high feed regimes just can’t cope on forage only (which is the case whether recorded or not).

 

[Hilly]

Big attribute here that I require, but can see isn't a problem for that many other sheep keepers, is that the sheep settle down and heft onto the hill properly. Tis rather pointless having the best performing ewe imaginable if she's miles away, on somebody elses ground.

Yes i used to keep mules and got like 190% most of sheep ended up on grass parks miles away with shyt facility’s , it was just stupid so i stopped it.

 

[som farmer]

as a dairy farmer, farmers spent centuries formulating breeds, to suit the micro climate, of a specific area.

and now, the 'solution' is to cross breed, seems to be somewhat of a backward step.

there are many systems developed to milk the cow, all of them probably work in similar systems, and we have loads of 'magic' ways, to choose from. And we have enough research, and genomic results available to select from.

you can formulate an ideal ration, on a computer, never known one yet, that actually produces its target yield. The cows will tell you.

but, get the ration to match the actual cow, everything falls into place.

but deep down, l feel its very wrong to throw away, the decades of work, past breeders put in to develop breeds, that suited the areas they were in.

 

[Henarar]

Yes, and their ebvs generally stand up well under that different management regime.

they would have to or your flock wouldn't stay near the top

My Charollais flock is often the top ranked flock on Signet figures and, if not, always very near it.

It doesn’t always work the other way round though, as some animals coming out of those high feed regimes just can’t cope on forage only (which is the case whether recorded or not).

interesting, do you keep any offspring from those that don't cope on forage only ? if so how do they tend to cope in comparison to offspring from your own breeding animals ?

 

[ladycrofter]

So many good points here! @som farmer micro climates for sure! We had also bought 4 Cheviot gimmers from a friend on the other side of our glen, and they performed beautifully.

And @neilo recorded sires are a different kettle of fish as they can affect your entire lamb crop and possibly not have the desired effect on producing good retained hoggs that will thrive on the hill. I had a piece of good advice from a vet once about my AI choices in the early cattle days. Advised not keeping heifers born of an easy -calving sire because what gets passed on is not "easy calving" - it's a small skeleton and possibly small pelvis.

Is they're the same follow through recording with sheep as there is for cattle? For example milkiness of daughters? A lot of cattle ebvs are very hard to measure on sheep.

 

[neilo]

So many good points here! @som farmer micro climates for sure! We had also bought 4 Cheviot gimmers from a friend on the other side of our glen, and they performed beautifully.

And @neilo recorded sires are a different kettle of fish as they can affect your entire lamb crop and possibly not have the desired effect on producing good retained hoggs that will thrive on the hill. I had a piece of good advice from a vet once about my AI choices in the early cattle days. Advised not keeping heifers born of an easy -calving sire because what gets passed on is not "easy calving" - it's a small skeleton and possibly small pelvis.

Is they're the same follow through recording with sheep as there is for cattle? For example milkiness of daughters? A lot of cattle ebvs are very hard to measure on sheep.

Are there not 2 different calving ease ebvs these days, one describing the cow's ability to calve, rather than just how easy it was born itself? I don't do cows so . Lack of accuracy is the killer on such traits though, particularly for young sires in/from small herds.

Yes, milkiness and mothering ability is measured in maternal (& to a lesser extent, terminal) sheep ebvs, from 8 week weights & weaning weights. Birth weights are also recorded and, optionally, lambing ease.