Genetic gain translates into
real results for clients
17 September 2009
There have been some very good on-property results
for Terrick clients over the last 12 months.
Results for Brian and Gay Tully at Tenham, Windora:
-
2 tooth mixed sexes cut 7.5 kg @ 21.1 mic.
-
Sold 9 and 10 month-old wether lambs weighing
15.5kg DW @ $50
-
Sold cfa wethers weighing 24kg DW @ $65
Results for the Wood family at Koondoo, Blackall:
Other results:
-
The McGavin Family at Jubilee Park, Barcaldine
won champion pen of lambs at the Barcaldine show
-
David and Genevieve Counsell at Dunblane,
Barcaldine came first in the wool section of the Barcaldine
wether trial
-
The Counsell family at Patricia Downs, Barcaldine
sold Terrick/Boonoke 2 tooth wethers @ $72-73
2009 season overview
17 September 2009
Amaroo is currently in the middle of a very dry
period having had only 40% of its annual rainfall to date.
Cattle were sent to Mitchell on agistment in April
and there are 900 general stud ewes up at Longreach and another
750 generals and the ram lambs on a neighbouring property.
While it is very dry, the stock that are left on
Amaroo are in excellent order. So far the ram lambs have not been
supplemented and are at this stage very pleasing. Let’s
hope for an early break to the season for everyone.
Significant reduction in
dog numbers and attacks
17 September 2009
Last year the Blackwater Dingo Trust (which Amaroo
is part of) employed professional dogger Don Solway to catch resident
and problem dogs. It was highly successful with Don catching 64
dogs throughout the trust, which is spread over about 700,000
acres.
This was followed up with a comprehensive aerial
and ground baiting program in December. This combination of control
programs resulted in a dog-free period of about six months before
there was another attack.
Don returned in June this year and caught another
30 dogs which he said were not residential but dispersing animals.
While the problem is far from under control, it
seems that there has been a significant reduction in dog numbers
and attacks. We’re planning to continue this method of control
into the future.
Electronic tagging introduced
to improve data accuracy
17 September 2009
This year electronic tags have been applied to the
08 drop rams and ewes. This has enabled us to collect data more
accurately and easily, and save time.
We are also planning to tag all the special stud
ewes and their progeny so we can use Match Maker - a program that
identifies the mothers of lambs electronically.
Having dam information will create a greater depth
and accuracy of genetic performance information generally, and
when linked into the Sheep
Genetics database.
Sire evaluation results
17 September 2009
The Longreach Sire Evaluation data is due to be
collected on 12 and 13 October. The only results in so far are
the weaning weights in which Terrick 01-0939 had the second highest.
The stud has also benchmarked sire 05-0034 at the
Bollon site in southern Queensland. This ram was ranked first
in the 05 drop and is the son of Charinga Junior 12. He was picked
up through a DNA test which showed that he had produced six rams
in the top 21 of the 07 drop. Five of those sheep were selected
in the reserves for the stud.
See
full results for sire 05-0034 (DOC, 45KB)
Breach
scores strongly linked to fleece weight
17 September 2009
This year the stud put breach wrinkle scores on
the 08 drop rams. While this was a considerable amount of work
and probably not the most accurate exercise as it was all done
visually, it yielded some interesting results when the performance
data was linked to the breach scores.
The scoring was done using the Visual Sheep Scoring
booklet developed by AWI and MLA. A breach score ‘1’
animal has very little or no wrinkle and a breach score ‘5’
has an excessive amount of breach wrinkle.
This table describes the animals’ performance
within their breach score groups.
| Number
of sheep |
Wrinkle
score |
FW |
FD |
BW |
| 170 |
1 |
95% |
0.4 |
100% |
| 220 |
2 |
102% |
-0.3 |
100.6% |
| 110 |
3 |
109% |
-0.32 |
98.6% |
| 20 |
4 |
120% |
0 |
104% |
| 0 |
5 |
0% |
0 |
0 |
The information clearly shows that there is a strong
correlation between fleece weight and breach scores. Currently
there is a large amount of pressure on stud breeders to select
towards these low score animals because of the mulesing issue.
However, there are some obvious major trade-offs that have to
be considered.
At this time, Terrick Merinos will continue to select
towards less complicated animals that are still performing well
above the stud average. The stud aims to retain its reserves within
the 1 and 2 scores and continue mulesing using pain relief.
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