Buying rams using Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) video transcript
My name’s Melanie Dowling, sheep genetics development officer for the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, agriculture and food, Western Australia.
Today’s video is a quick guide to help you buy rams using ASBVs at your stud sale.
Buying rams only happens once a year and it can have a huge impact on your profitability, so it’s really important that you put lots of effort into buying the best rams.
When you go to your stud sale it’s really important to be well prepared and do your homework first. This’ll help you keep focused on the genetics, and not be overwhelmed by the visual effects of the sheep on the day of the auction.
For example, looking at the two sheep in this picture, we can see that you would naturally gravitate towards the bigger sheep at the rear of the picture. However, these sheep are actually both ET sheep, and they are from the same mum and the same dad, so their genetics are identical. This means that the back one though, which is slightly bigger, was born as a single whereas the front sheep was born as a triplet, so the effect of the birth type and the environment has made these two sheep visually different. On sale day, this could be an advantage if you’ve done your homework looking at your ASBVs, you can snag some real bargains by not being overwhelmed by that visual effect.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is contact your stud breeder before the auction day and get a copy of the auction catalogue so you can do your homework. Secondly, you’ll need a percentile bands report and make sure that it’s the current one. If your ram breeder hasn’t included this in the sale catalogue, you can go online to the Sheep Genetics website (sheepgenetics.org.au) and download a copy. A percentile band report gives you the values of every single sheep that is in the Sheep Genetics database. This report is really important to allow you to figure out where your flock is currently and where the sale rams are sitting in comparison to your flock. This will help you make an informed decision to actually progress your genetics in a positive direction.
On the percentile report, look for the trait up the top that you’re most interested in. Then, head down that column and find the ASBV of the ram that you’re interested in. If then you move across to the band you can see where that ram sits in comparison to all of the sheep in the Sheep Genetics database. Mark the traits on the percentile band report for those traits that you’re interested in for your breeding objective. Look at those traits, and then highlight on the form where your sheep are currently sitting, then mark on the table where the sale rams are sitting and then you can make a selection out of the sale rams that are better than where your sheep are currently sitting. This’ll give you an indication of where your flock is sitting.
If you don’t have these values, you can get a flock profiling test done through the Sheep CRC.
If your stud has only just started using ASBVs, ask your stud to give you an average of their current ASBVs. This’ll give you a guide as to where to start from. Buying rams better than this average will improve your flock.
Now you need to go through your catalogue and mark every ram that is better than what you’ve already got and ones that you might be interested in buying on ram sale day. Make sure you select more rams than what you actually need. On sale day make sure you go and visually assess those rams that are on your list. Only those ones that you have assessed their ASBVs are good enough to improve your flock genetics. Place a priority grade on those sheep that you want to spend the most amount of money on. Make sure you still have some sheep in reserve, like I said in case someone outbids you and go and have fun on ram buying day.