Wool Characteristics.

We are testing all ram hgt fleeces using a technique that quantifies not only the micron but also the shape of the fibres and the proportion of coarse edge fibres. This is aiming to provide the genetics for softer yarn without the prickle factor, which is suited to apparel and hand knitting yarn

Meat Characteristics.

We are ultra sound scanning the ram hgts prior to sale to assess eye muscle area and fat depth for incorporation into SIL.

We are still actively looking for opportunities to assess IMF and eating quality traits and support the development of the MEQ probe at Progressive meats to measure and evaluate IMF.

Worm Resilience.

This trait is still taking a lot of our effort. Wallaceville trial work has shown that the heritability for resilience in the Te Whangai flock is almost twice as high as otherwise expected, with a heritability of 0.53 for total number of drenches and 0.34 for age to first drench, this is because our program involves less environmental ‘noise’ owing to lambs not being drenched at weaning. We can make good gains in this area by breeding but the cost of compromised production is high.

We were part of the original CARLA validation project 13 years ago hoping that there would be a more simple way of identifying resilient animals.

Lower FEC levels and higher growth rate are favourably correlated with sheep that produce a strong antibody response to the CARLA molecule on the outer sheath of L3 parasite larvae.

For some reason this was not the case in the Te Whangai flock, where we had previously discovered our flock data clearly showed very negative correlations between low FEC and high production and we presented that data at a conference at Massey in 2010 ( see below) so continuing with the CARLA program did not appear to be worthwhile, however a review of those CARLA results will be undertaken.

Genotyping.

All 2500 recorded ewes and all their progeny are fully 60k snp profiled now. This has it’s pros and cons, the biggest negative is the cost. Immediate positives include adding to the accuracy of parentage verification and therefore accuracy of breeding values which in turn means less progeny are required per sire, to still achieve accurate data which in turn means we can progeny test more sires.

Other positives are being able to mate ewes in bigger mobs and rotate rather than set stock over tupping, not disturbing ewes over lambing so reduced mismothering and pushing out of shelter, considerably less labour input at lambing (so shepherds can take holidays!)

The biggest positives remain the opportunity to link performance data from non recorded animals to specific sires through their dna, eg animals with a desirable meat quality trait could have a tissue sample collected at slaughter and be linked to a particular sire.