"If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else." ~ Yogi Berra
Winter finally decided to arrive last month🥶. I trust all your ewes and lambs are full and contented with a bit of shelter from the cold!
As we look towards the Longreach ram sale next Friday (12 July 2024), and our On-Property Ram on 18 September, I thought it would be useful to think about creating a genetic plan for your flocks.
Compounding interest in breeding
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it.”
In breeding sheep, our version of compound interest is improving genetics. If we make a genetic improvement this year, it stays around in the genetics of our ewes for their entire lifetime AND it also gets passed onto their progeny, and their progeny in turn!
Contrast that to management. If you feed your ewes differently this year, they will perform differently this year. There might even be a slight carryover next year in some cases, but there won't be any long-lasting effects.
Ewes performing on dry feed.
A change in management can have a big impact, but it's a one-off change until you make another change.
A change in genetics will have a smaller impact, but it is cumulative and continues.
It is clear that we want to continue to improve our genetics to take advantage of the compounding effects.
Unfortunately, genetic gain is not a given. In the same way that you can compound the effect of a gain in any particular trait, you can also compound the effect of a loss in a trait. Or you could select against a trait that you previously selected for, and negate the gains you made.
Why use a genetic plan?
In order to consistently make genetic gain, you need a plan!
Having a clear plan will enable you to stay on track over time.
A plan provides you with focus and clarity.
Some people get excited by rams with high reproduction figures but fail to class out ewes that don't rear a lamb.
Others may endeavour to achieve premiums for non-mulesed sheep but still buy rams from a stud that is mulesing.
If you have a clear plan that you refer to before making both classing and ram buying decisions, you will avoid these 1 step forward and 1 step backward situations.
Having a plan also saves time!
With that plan, you can quickly filter out the rams that do or don't suit your breeding objectives. On sale day, you can then focus your attention on the rams that will help you meet your goals.
At classing time, you can make faster decisions by being clear about what you do or don't want.
Yarding sheep.
A genetic plan is unique to you.
Different sheep will suit different people. Even your neighbour on the same soil type as you will likely want a different sheep to you for any number of reasons.
They might run their business differently. They might have different goals for their lifestyle. They might have different management strategies. They might have different risk tolerances. They might have different access to capital.
All these things mean that YOU need to create a genetic plan that suits YOU!
After years of watching people select rams, I can tell you that the “best” ram is extremely subjective. I guarantee that for every ram you think is the best, I could find someone else who wouldn't even give him a second thought!
Creating a genetic plan
FIRST, get your team together. If you have a team who helps you make decisions in your business, it is important to seek their input in creating the genetic plan. You won't progress very fast if you create a plan that doesn't get implemented by other members of your team.
SECOND, don't focus only on production traits. If you've been following along for any length of time, you'll have heard me spouting neXtgen Agri's philosophy of thinking through 4 key aspects of genetics:
- The things that make you money
- The things that save you money
- The things that save you time
- The things that delight your customer
NeXtgen Agri have created a useful tool that steps you through the 4 aspects and explains what each of them means.
Head over to their resource page at https://www.nextgenagri.com/resources and scroll down to “Your Genetic Plan”. This is a completely free tool (just add in your email to download it immediately from the website).
THIRD, write down your plan. If you use the neXtgen Agri tool above, you will end up with a list of 5-8 traits that you can focus on improving every year to meet your goals.
To make your plan even more valuable, try to be specific. Instead of "fast early growth", you could say “90% of mature weight at 10 months of age”. Instead of “more, finer wool”, write “Ewes average 6kg/year of 17.5 micron wool”.
FOURTH, implement your plan!
Use it to determine what traits to focus on when choosing rams to purchase.
Use it to determine what you need to look at when classing your sheep.
Use it to work out what to measure to ensure you are continually improving your genetics.
A genetic plan works!
Genetic improvement is our passion at Rissmerino. A focus in the last 2 years has been to increase survivability through improving Fat and Muscle breeding values, while maintaining wool cut and wool quality.
By targeting some key traits, in the last 2 years we improved our eye muscle depth, weaning rate & post weaning weight rankings by 20 percentile points.
We also improved our fat ranking by 10 percentile points while improving every wool trait as well.
We would love to know what your goals are. When you complete your genetic plan, please send us a copy so that we can see what you are striving for. (Or write in the comments below).
A good goal in our minds is to breed sheep that work for you, not make work for you!
Happy breeding, and we look forward to seeing some of you at Longreach next week!