When asked - what type of measurements can Merino breeders look at to better understand their flock - Belinda Steers said the first one is your DNA flock profile.
"From a commercial flock point of view, your DNA flock profile is the biggest tool in your tool box," Ms Steers said.
"It straightaway determines if it's the genes or the management which is letting you down to why things aren't happening on the farm."
Ms Steers was addressing the Empowering your Merino webinar hosted by the Pooginook Merino stud, Coleambally.
She continued her address by highlighting the many traits which can easily be measured such as greasy fleece weight, micron and staple length if you are interested in six-month shearing.
"You can also map your growth by weighing your animals over certain points of time," Ms Steers said.
"And from a fertility perspective you can measure your pregnancy scan results through electronic ear tags and you've also got the ability of just recording who was born a twin by simply noting the tag range when marking a twin-born group."
Ms Steers noted from a ram point of view in a commercial flock, you can monitor your ram team through MerinoSelect on top of visually culling them.
"If you want more from a stud point of view but you aren't in the game of measuring, it's a really great opportunity to start," she said.
"There are so many people in the industry who can now help you."
She said data measurement had been considered the realm of the studs, but Ms Steers said benefits also existed for commercial producers to get involved.
"In commercial flocks, a lot of the reporting done is too look at what lever needs to be pulled such as greasy fleece weight," she said.
"But the biggest thing we have to make genetic progress in the majority of cases is to actually have a reproductive rate that is high enough to allow a high culling rate."
All producers know that fertility is the one trait they want to improve, but they also acknowledge it has been hard to measure.
"Fertility has always lived under the shadow of being hard to measure and inaccurate due to low heritability or influences such as the environment," Ms Steers said.
"But there are huge bonuses to measuring it, for it allows selection for other traits when the number of progeny increases.
"The data coming out of Sheep Genetics has show a lot of scope for genetic improvement of each trait when you have the numbers of progeny."
Ms Steers also explained the genetic influence on a given flock was totally independent to the non-genetic (i.e. environmental).
"In other words, you can keep doing the management year-on-year to improve your non-genetic part, but the genetic part stays in the flock forever," she said.
True measured fertility comes from mothering up, which large-scale producers will acknowledge is really hard to do, but aids such as DNA testing and mothering collars have helped core Merino flocks get good reproductive records.
"Up until now the ASBV (Australian Sheep Breeding Value) has been the 'number of lambs weaned', and that was how we described fertility," Ms Steers said.
"Selection for number of lambs weaned has inherently selected for larger litter size. But the 'number of lambs weaned' will be phased out next year and taken out of the indexes."
Ms Steers said that measurement will be replaced by the component traits - conception, litter size, ewe rearing ability and maternal behaviour.
The application of RamSelect data is not purely for the stud breeder, as it can also be used in a commercial flock.
This tool allows flock breeders to have up-to-date information on their current ram teams.
"It allows you to search up-coming sales for rams which meet your specifications in breeding objectives," Ms Steers said.
"You can also identify the rams in the bottom of your team for given traits and cull them.
"The safest way to improve your ram team is to cull from the bottom and replace them with mid-merit rams that tick all your boxes, rather than with extremes which are either too expensive or don't meet all your trait needs.
"However like for all traits, improving your genetics will also require management adjustments to make the most of them.
"For example a trait like reproduction, improving your genetics for littler size will also require management adjustments to make the most of the increased number of twins."
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