Reading Sale catalogues

"That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains." ~ Steve Jobs

It's already August, which means that ram buying season starts next month in Australia! Our 2024 On Property Ram Sale is Wednesday 18 September.

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Sometime in the next month you will start receiving catalogues from stud breeders with lots of numbers, figures, strange acronyms and abbreviations. You'll be receiving an email from us at the end of the month with our own list of numbers, figures and acronyms…

I live and breathe this stuff regularly, so it has become second nature. But you probably only think about it once a year at the ram (and bull) sales, so it is understandable that each year it will be a confusing and overwhelming process.

In this article you will learn how to avoid being overwhelmed by all the information and I will provide an overview of the important traits to consider.

Next month you will learn how to filter out the rams that suit you using ASBVs. This will help you make the most of your precious time on Sale day when you combine data with visual assessments.

FD, SD, CV, ASBV, WXYZ?!

There are over 80 different ASBVs and innumerable other measured traits that ram sellers could display in their catalogues. Completely overwhelming!

Of course, there won't be that many figures given to you on the day, but it's still confusing.

 

To simplify, I would lump all the data into 3 main categories:

1. ASBVs (Australian Sheep Breeding Values).
2. Measured or Scored traits that have an ASBV.
3. Visual traits with no ASBV.

ASBVs

In brief, an ASBV is an estimate (or educated guess) of the underlying genetic merit of a given trait.

Essentially, stud breeders measure (or at least they should!) and score lots of different traits. These traits all go into a massive computer. This machine takes into account every sheep's siblings, parents, grandparents and so on. It then performs lots of calculations and provides its best estimate of the genetics of an animal for each trait.

It is trying to take out all the environmental effects that we discussed in our May and June articles.

ASBVs are an estimate of how the progeny of any given sheep will perform for each of the over 80 different traits.

When buying a ram, the way his progeny perform is the only thing that matters. Well, besides being able to make the ewes pregnant, of course!

Here's the important thing to know: when comparing two animals, unless they have had the exact same management and opportunity as each other (including birth type and age of the dam), you cannot tell which is better from their measured data.

An ASBV, while far from perfect, is the best way to compare any two sheep.

One caveat is that if your stud breeder is not measuring or scoring for a particular trait, it makes the ASBV of that trait much less reliable. Make sure to check that your stud breeder is measuring the traits you care about. Otherwise, you may end up being caught out with a ram whose progeny do not perform the way his ASBV said they should.

Measured/scored traits (with ASBV)

The second main group is measured or scored traits. These only consider how the animal itself is performing.

For simplicity's sake, I would recommend ignoring any measured traits in a catalogue if there is a corresponding ASBV. This is because there are so many environmental factors that influence these traits.

As I said above, it is the ram's progeny that matters to you. The ram being 2kg heavier or cutting 10% more wool means nearly nothing unless his progeny perform the same.

Visual traits with no ASBV

This data is still useful. There are still plenty of traits that do not have ASBVs. Also, while many of the visual wool traits do have ASBVs, not enough other breeders score them and they are often inaccurate.

This will change in the future as more data is collected across the industry. For now, structural scores will still be important and you will still need to assess the type and style of wool you want.

Matching with your genetic plan

At this point we've narrowed down a little bit to focus on just ASBVs and structural scores. But we can do more to remove the unnecessary information.

Now, refer back to the Genetic Plan you created as a result of last month's article. Hopefully you selected your top 5-7 traits that are going to move you closer to your ideal sheep.

This allows you to go through the catalogue and only have to worry about a handful of numbers for each ram, ignoring much of the rest. Far less overwhelming!

A summary of important ASBVs

Of course, you will still be lost if you don't understand what any of the different ASBVs mean!

This article would be far too long if I covered everything about ASBVs, so I plan to write several articles explaining them more next year. If you need help for this ram selling season, give me a call on 0431 071 766 (or book a time for me to call you on our contact page).

You could also use the free and very comprehensive resource put together by neXtgen Agri. Download the Ram Buying Guide for free at neXtgen Agri Resources (https://www.nextgenagri.com/resources).

 

That said, here is a list of what we consider to be some of the more important traits and what the numbers represent:

ASBV descriptions

Note: ASBVs are not absolute values. They are quoted relative to the average of the flock in 1990. E.g. WWT 4 means 4kg heavier at weaning than the average sheep in 1990.

WWT, PWT, YWT, AWT: How much an animal weighs in kg at different stages of life - Weaning, Post weaning (6-9mths), Yearling and Adult - expressed in kg. Higher is good, but we also don't want massive adult sheep that are inefficient and eat too much grass.

YFAT: Yearling fat in mm. The amount of fat covering the loin. Even small increases in this trait provide greater survivability and increased reproduction through tough times. More fat, to a point, also increases the flavour of the meat.

YEMD: Yearling eye muscle depth in mm. The depth of the eye muscle in the loin chop. Higher EMD gives you sheep that stay in better condition and have higher yielding carcasses.

EBCOV, EBWR: Early breech cover & breech wrinkle, based on a 1-5 score. More negative values mean a barer and plainer breech, meaning no need for mulesing. These are key traits to eliminate flystrike without mulesing.

YSC: Yearling scrotal circumference in mm. Bigger testes give you more fertile daughters.

ERA: Ewe rearing ability expressed as the number of lambs weaned per lambs born. The numbers look small, but 0.09 is equivalent to 9% more lambs per ewe. The higher it is, the better the ewe is at keeping her lambs alive to weaning.

YWEC: Yearling worm egg count as a percentage. More negative means the sheep have less worms as a result of being more resistant to them.

YFD: Yearling fibre diameter in microns. The lower this is, the finer micron wool you will have.

YSL: Yearling staple length in mm. The higher this is, the longer wool you will grow.

YCFW: Yearling clean fleece weight as a percentage. A higher number means it cuts you more wool. Be careful to not focus exclusively on this as too much wool greatly affects other important traits like fertility and survivability.

YDCV: Yearling fibre diameter coefficient of variation. The lower this number, the more even and consistent is the fibre diameter of the wool (lower CV and SD of your wool). Having less variation in fibre diameter is desirable for wool quality and for tensile strength. Interestingly, more negative YDCV is highly correlated with a better all round sheep.

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I hope this has been helpful. Again, please reach out if you need more help! The rams you buy impact your genetics for many years after the purchase, so make your decisions wisely!

Kind regards

The Rissmerino Team