ASBV's

MERINOSELECT ASBV

Sheep Genetics (SG) is the organisation that combines the main databases of Australian sheep breeds & is the largest and most comphrehensive accross flock genetic benchmark in the world today. Lambplan provides data services for lamb industry & Merinoselect serves the wool and sheepmeat industry with significant overlap in carcase & disease traits which are common to both.

Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBV's) are the common genetic language used.

Ranking animals for different traits within the whole database is very important to successful selection & breeding. Is a ram or ewe in the top 10% of breed or Bottom 10%?

Percentiles can tell us the answer from top 1% to down to the bottom (100%).

Some breeders use index's for selection. Following is an explanation of the currently available Merinoselect index's.

Breech Wrinkle - EBWR

Early Breech Wrinkle (EBWR) and body wrinkle have an estimated heritability of 0.35, which is similar to body weight, staple strength and eye muscle depth. Environmental effects also have a significant effect on the expression of wrinkle, sometimes called ‘feed wrinkle’.
twin born lambs 0.3 to 0.5 score plainer than a single born lamb
maiden lambs 0.2 to 0.3 score plainer than lambs from older ewes
drought lambs 0.5 to 1.0 score plainer than lambs born in good feed conditions.
Accounting for these feed effects is one of the reasons why a Breech wrinkle ASBV has been developed. All Petali stud lambs are scored at lambmarking for Breech wrinkle. This is an ideal time to assess lambs & the development of the new ASBV is a very timely & valuable tool.