Traits to think about recording in 2022, New Years Resolution

Looking back on some past work conducted by NSW DPI we came across an old paper that was published in 1940 by the Joint Blowfly Committee - it stated "The Mules operation must not be regarded as an alternative to the policy of breeding towards plain-breeched sheep".

We are keen to help breeders navigate a path that best suits their breeding objective, target markets and environment. If you want some help please get in touch.

We are working with more and more breeders who are moving to non-mules operations or working towards this. Our approach is that not one size fits all as we are not all starting from the same base. There are a number of approaches, genetics is one, which is permanent and cumulative. The challenge is managing key production traits whilst balancing animal health and welfare traits.

We work closely with many of our clients to record breech traits, both ram and commercial breeders, however this is only part of the story. As we know genetics plays a key role, we are keen to focus on a number of other traits next year to help breeders move to non-mulse if and where possible.

Three other traits that are heritable and play a significant part in flystrike prevention (breech and body)

• DAG

• URINE

• FLEECE Rot

Below are the score for each of the traits, we have copies of the AWI visual scores booklets, please let us know if you would like a copy or click here to go to the PDF version.

Visual Score Guide - Dag Scores

Some work presented in 2016 at the AWI Breech Strike R&D Technical Update presented some work based in a winter rainfall region that looked at Dag Score (2, 3, and 4) and the incidence of breech strike for hogget age sheep that had breech score of 1 and 2 and breech cover of 3 (blue column) and 4 (red column). The two graphs below show the results. If you would like to view the full presentation click here.