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Title
Impact of liveweight, fat and muscle sire breeding values on ewe reproduction is minimal but variable across Australian grazing systems
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008:
Author(s)
Publication Date
2017
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008
Abstract
Australian sheep producers have the potential to improve reproductive rates through optimising ewe body condition across the production cycle. Managing ewe body condition can become costly when supplementary feeding is required due to poor pasture growth or rainfall and by using appropriate genetics, producers can theoretically reduce the flock's dependency on supplementary feed and improve reproductive rates. Reproductive records from the Information Nucleus Flock and Sheep Genetics Merino and maternal breed data sets were analysed to examine the influence of sire breeding values for liveweight (post-weaning, yearling and adult assessments), fat and eye muscle depths (post-weaning and yearling assessments) and number of lambs weaned on reproductive performance (fertility, litter size and number of lambs born) across a variety of production environments. To determine the impact of environmental conditions on the relationship between weight, ultrasound body composition, and reproduction traits the daughters' adjusted reproductive performances were regressed on the sire's breeding value across flocks, within flocks and within flock x year. Irrespective of age at assessment, sire breeding values for liveweight, fat and eye muscle depths had very little association with the reproductive performance of their daughters, on average. The regressions of reproduction on weight, and fat and eye muscle depth traits varied across flocks from unfavourable to favourable estimates. The very small overall impact of weight, and fat and eye muscle depth traits, on average suggests that using sire breeding values for number of lambs weaned, which had a large impact on reproduction, will provide the most viable method to genetically improve reproductive performance within the production system in question.
Publication Type
Journal Article
Source of Publication
Animal Production Science, 57(9), p. 1952-1961
Publisher
CSIRO Publishing
Place of Publication
Australia
ISSN
1836-5787
1836-0939
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020
Peer Reviewed
Yes
HERDC Category Description
Peer Reviewed
Yes
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