Carcass value an opportunity for wool breeders

As the focus on improving the carcass quality of Merino sheep increases, the NSW Department of Primary Industries has released a timely study.

In a massive number crunching exercise, fourteen production characteristics were analysed from more than 110,000 sheep records gathered over 30 years.

A key finding is that there are no major antagonisms between breeding for wool and meat in Merinos, meaning that breeders can improve both characteristics using an appropriate selection index.

The study, led by NSW Department of Primary Industries research scientists, combined data from seven Australian Merino research flocks across Australia including three owned by NSW DPI.

NSW DPI’s Dr Alex Safari said that until this study was undertaken, accurate estimates of genetic correlations among most production traits were not available.

There was little information about the correlations between genes for:

•    wool, with carcass, reproduction and feed intake

•    growth, with carcass, reproduction and feed intake and

•    within carcass traits.

“Earlier work showed there were huge gaps in information about the impact of breeding for some specific groups of traits”, Dr Safari said.

“The good news is that we can now develop more complex and diverse breeding objectives with increased certainty of outcome.

“This is particulary important when it comes to breeding Merinos for both meat and wool in the current very difficult production and economic environment.”

Sheep Genetics Australia (SGA) is already incorporating the genetic correlations relating to growth, reproduction and wool into their genetic evaluation systems.

Dr Safari said relationships are now being investigated between carcass and meat quality traits and other production traits, within carcass and meat quality traits and between feed intake and other production traits.

The research was undertaken in conjunction with the Australian Sheep Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), CSIRO, University of New England and South Australian and West Australian state government departments.

Findings from this major study of 110,000 records were published recently in international scientific journals.