CAREFUL FLOCK RECORDING FINDS BEST AND WORST
CAREFUL FLOCK RECORDING FINDS BEST AND WORST
Accurate identification and recording has helped boost performance for one Scottish Blackface flock. Allan Wright reports
RECORDING is a way of life for Sandy and Ann Welsh who run 650 Blackface ewes on the 650ha (1600-acre) Mossfennan Farm, Broughton, Lanarkshire.
"People say Ive recorded my way out of a job because I used to look after the casualties. It would be wrong to say we have no difficulties today but selection based on methodical recording has improved things enormously," says Ann Welsh.
"Recording is about selecting for the best but it has an even more important role in pinpointing the worst and culling the animals that cause problems year after year," says her husband.
They share an enthusiasm for recording stimulated by troubles imported with bought-in stock.
"We bought big tups which produced small lambs and we bought big tups which produced big lambs that turned out to have no milk as ewes. The trouble in the Blackface world is that big ram lambs which make fancy prices are those which respond best to intensive feeding and housing without any proven genetic potential to improve performance on a commercial flock," says Mr Welsh.
Records
"We sell our rams privately to breeders who recognise that performance data is of real, practical value; we can provide the records to show that these animals will improve the performance of a flock and that is what matters," he adds.
Recording in the early days was a mixture of home-grown ideas and the MLC weight recording scheme. Nowadays it involves the Signet Sheepbreeder system with its weight recording, backfat scanning, and incorporation of BLUP maternal traits. The Welshs are also members of the Blackface sire reference scheme.
That involves using two AI sires, each on 15 ewes, in all of the reference scheme flocks. "It gives us a common benchmark, allows the BLUP programme far wider scope, and enables inter-flock comparisons," says Mr Welsh.
He insists that the reference index from the official recording scheme is a powerful tool for selection but must be combined with eye judgement as well.
Recording at Mossfennan begins at birth. Ewes have a distance-readable tag and as each lamb is born it is tagged with a Dalton rototag, with the flock number on one side and an individual number on the female side. The female halves of the tags are kept in numerical order on a plastic knitting pin to ensure they come off in the correct order, he says, and reports no welfare problems or any significant tag loss.
"I accept that this system is not for the open hill. We are fortunate in having enough in-bye land that all ewes are in lambing fields and it is relatively easy to catch up the new born lamb and tag it without the mother running off," he says.
At the same time as lambs are tagged he enters the number, date of birth, and sex in his day book along with the ewes number. The sire is already known because groups of ewes are confined with a single sire at tupping time.
The data is transferred each evening onto a Signet recording sheet and into Mrs Welshs little black book. The next stage is at marking time when, armed with the book and the Signet index, the first selection is made.
"We establish an above average yardstick for the ewes and then judge all the lambs by eye. Anything which is doubtful on normal type characteristics only gets a second look if the mothers index is high. Otherwise male lambs are castrated and females marked for the butcher," explains Mrs Welsh.
Weight gain
The process is repeated in late August by which time weight gain figures come into the equation. "Among the female lambs we are looking for the top 50% in each heft on performance and then making final selection of replacement stock on face colour, tightness of fleece, and size. We keep rather more than we need so that there can be a final selection at gimmer stage," says Mr Welsh.
At that age the management tags are inserted. They include a group reference which indicates the sire. "When a ewe has a poor lamb in terms of performance or type, the natural instinct is to blame the sire of the lamb. But, in fact, it may well be the sire of the ewe that is at fault," says Mrs Welsh who found that in an imported ram a few years ago.
Early selection of male lambs will have the number down to between 60 and 70 by August and then the eye comes in before the index. "There are obvious non-starters: Those with very white faces, poor skins, bad set of horns, or poor leg set," says Mr Welsh.
He is particularly critical of breeders who set the horns of ram lambs to hide a tendency to grow into the head, a trait which quickly reappears as the ram matures.
After final selection the batch of ram lambs are reared on to shearling stage before being retained in the flock or sold to like-minded breeders. Ewe lambs not retained are sold at Lanark breeding sales. Reject ewe lambs are finished with wedder lambs off rape and silage aftermath, most away well before Christmas.
"Recording has lifted the average performance of the flock as much by pointing out the poorest performers as pinpointing the best. We have a far more even crop of lambs each year now and a poor performer is rare.
"Performance recording is a valuable tool for flock improvement but it has to be complemented by visual judgement. The combination gives a route to continued improvement of both type and performance," says Mr Welsh. *
Right: Flock recording has improved the performance of Sandy and Ann Welshs 650 Blackface ewes – it pinpoints the poor performers as well as the best.
Left: Lambs are tagged at birth at Mossfennan, with both flock and individual numbers to aid recording.
BLACKFACE RECORDING
• Identifies good and poor performance.
• Increased flock performance.
• More even crop of lambs produced.
• Visual judgement also important.