Impact of liveweight, fat and muscle sire breeding values on ewe reproduction is minimal but variable across Australian grazing systems
S. F. Walkom A B C and D. J. Brown A BA Cooperative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.
B Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. AGBU is a joint venture of NSW Department of Primary Industries and the University of New England.
C Corresponding author. Email: swalkom@une.edu.au
Animal Production Science 57(9) 1952-1961 https://doi.org/10.1071/AN15574
Submitted: 14 September 2015 Accepted: 9 May 2016 Published: 8 August 2016
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 datasets 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 × 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.
Additional keywords: fertility, litter size, maternal breeds, Merino, number of lambs born.
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