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PERFORMANCE
IMPROVEMENT FOR NORTH AMERICAN ROMNEYS THROUGH THE NATIONAL SHEEP
IMPROVEMENT PLAN
by
Stephen Shafer, Saugerties, NY
Want
to improve your flock without changing feed, schedules or labor? Do
it through systematic genetic improvements guided by a Performance
Recording System (PRS). Improvements in traits such as weight-for-age,
maternal milking ability, fertility, yearling sheared fleece weight
or average fiber diameter come far faster with a PRS than even the
most astute breeder will get without one. ARBA members can now join
an established PRS, the National Sheep Improvement Plan (NSIP).
Seeing
a project that can benefit every member, the ARBA Board resolved in
August 2003 that all ARBA members should consider joining a PRS. The
Board preferred
NSIP to two other good PRSs, both based in New Zealand. As the designated Romney
coordinator for NSIP I go further, to urge that all but our very smallest flocks
join. (The smallest flocks are welcome, but would not themselves suffice.)
Bringing Romneys into NSIP will help people who never show and circuit
regulars alike.
It will be a new incentive to “go Romney.”
For
statistical purposes, NSIP has to have a critical-mass breed group.
Single flocks cannot join, as a diversity of flocks and a sufficiency
of sheep are
needed for valid comparisons across genetic lines. A breed needs at least
25 flocks
recorded yearly for 2-3 years. Each flock needs at least 10 ewes lambing
by each of three different sires. Flocks smaller than this, or shorter
time intervals,
will add information but would not be adequate. The more links there are
among flocks (e.g. progeny of ram A now breeding on farms B, C, and
D) the faster
the
possible progress. (The New Zealand PRSs, which do take single flocks, already
have a big base of interlinked Romneys.)
Relatively
flocks can add information very well if genetic lines cross them. For
example, a flock with 15 ewes enrolled in NSIP can add information
if
those 15 ewes are bred by a ram who the year before served another NSIP
flock of
the same size. Even using a son of that ram will contribute.
Properly
using a good-sized PRS to select breeding stock it should be possible
to increase the average 60-day weights in your flock by 5-10 pounds over
5-7 years even if you don’t change other aspects of management. Comparable
improvements in fertility and fleece weight are a realistic target also. While
this may not seem a great commercial payoff for one small flock, recall what
it means about vigor in that flock. Yet more important is that pulling mutually
for measured improvement builds cooperation among breeders. A PRS serves the
breed more than an individual. In fact, you don’t have to be a
PRS to gain by its work, if you ask potential sellers to share findings.
By
getting data from many flocks and working those data hard NSIP (on
a computer at Virginia Tech) can find which genetic lines offer the
best
chance of improving
their progeny on the chosen heritable traits over a 5-10 year period.
Most
of us do at-home “performance recording” of a sort and try to make decisions
with it, but we can’t adjust for all the variables. Nor can we factor in
how our favorites’ progeny perform across a variety of programs and climes.
NSIP does this and more, in terms of a statistic abbreviated EPD (for Expected
Progeny Difference). EPDs and the related statistic “Expected Breeding
Value” (EBV) are discussed clearly in NSIP publications on their website, www.nsip.org. Recent editions of the Sheep Production Handbook are also good
on the methods. If you need hard copy, contact me at my address in Ramblings
or at shpcount@earthlink.net. Put “NSIP” or “Romney” on
the subject line.
You
as a participant will send me as coordinator data like lamb’s parentage,
birth weight, early outcome etc. All the data points are familiar to you, though
some are realized in a novel way. With 60-day weights, for example, you don’t
try to weigh each lamb on its 60-day birthday. Instead, you weigh at one time
a cohort whose ages bracket 60 days; you might weigh all February lambs on April
16, when the youngest is 47 days and the oldest is 75. You code for each lamb
the early management he or she had (e.g. period of access to creep feed). I am
asking as Romney coordinator that you record each sheep’s phenotype
as W or B in the OPT (optional data) cell.
NSIP
wants to know every single outcome of every single breeding animal
up to where the sheep leaves the farm. Omissions will cause
more vagueness
than
bias,
but either is bad. All your data and results are confidential.
Only the best EPDs are made public. NSIP is not set up or able to decide
who’s the “best” shepherd
or who has the “best” flock. These constructs are not
even looked at; they cannot be measured objectively, and NSIP is
about objective measurements.
It is a cooperative across-flock breed improvement effort. For
Romneys in the US its use as a selling point comes second to its
bigger purpose. A potential
buyer, however, should ask person-to-person about EPDs for the
selected traits just as she or he might about an on-farm statistic
like 60-day weight. As the
plan gets bigger with Romneys buyers will come to demand EPDs as
a criterion in choosing breeding stock.
NSIP
ordinarily charges a breed $2000 a year for up to a thousand breeding
animals, then $3000/yr for more than a thousand. The annual
payment
for each flock within
the breed is structured differently by each breed to reach the
total required, using the model of x dollars per flock plus y
dollars per
breeding sheep
within that flock. NSIP offers new member breeds an introductory
rate of $50/flock
plus $1.25 per breeding animal (ram or ewe) recorded. Your flock
annual fee is payable
to NSIP when your annual report is in my hands.
You
will need scales for lambs and for sheared fleece weight. 60-day weights
can be done on a bathroom scale. High-tech data
like micron
counts or loin
eye scans are not required, though NSIP can already process
the former. You’ll
send me your data in NSIP’s spreadsheet format. I hope
you can submit them electronically; NSIP has a customized Excel
workbook I can send you.
As
breed coordinator I send in everyone’s data at one time, once a year.
For 2004 submissions, that date is still undecided. It could be July 1 to include
the 2003 lamb crop with, maybe, earlier observations from some breeders. Because
of the once-a year plan, it is unlikely that information from lambs born in January
of one year can be used for breeding decisions the next August. This may seem
annoying, but it takes two or three years anyway to add precision to the estimates;
particularly in the first year, don’t hold your breath.
This
is a slightly revised version of my article in the November 2003 Ramblings.
Call, email or US mail me with your concerns
and questions.
Opinions are
my own, not those of ARBA or NSIP; any errors are also
my responsibility.
Steve
Shafer
Anchorage Farm
8 Mynderse Street
Saugerties NY 12477-1704
212-222-5703
shpcount@earthlink.net
Last updated 6/19/2005
All membership questions
and Association business should be sent to the ARBA Secretary
at secretary@americanromney.org.
This includes any comments on this web site or suggestions for content.
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© 2000-2009 The American Romney Breeders Association,
Inc.
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