Beef + Lamb New Zealand Genetics have released NZ Standard Maternal Worth and NZ Standard Terminal Worth to make ram buying much clearer for commercial farmers. Dr Mark Young, senior geneticist at B+LNZ Genetics and SIL outlined the new indices to ram breeders at the organisation’s recent sheep breeders’ forum in Napier.
“These industry standard indexes are being introduced for maternal sheep and meat sheep to overcome the problem caused by too many different indexes being used across flocks,” Young said.
“We’ve had feedback that some aspects of the SIL system need to be simplified to help buyer confidence and to produce consistency in how animals are rated. Our response is to develop these two new, high-level indexes.”
Young said SIL did not want to constrain breeders’ ability to focus their breeding programme on their own breeding goals.
“This way, breeders can still use indexes as they wish for their own purposes. However, these new indexes provide a common yardstick for the commercial farmer to judge animals by, when buying rams.
“Buyers can compare rams using these index figures that summarise an animal’s overall merit, based on the same basket of traits and the same economic weightings.
“The new indexes are available now so expect to see them being used increasingly over the next few years as buyers demand these standard ratings.”
Dr Mark Young, senior geneticist at B+LNZ Genetics and SIL.
New B+LNZ genetic indices
NZ Standard Maternal Worth index – takes into account:
- Reproduction (number of lambs)
- Lamb survival
- Lamb growth and adult size
- Wool production
- Carcase meat yield
NZ Standard Terminal Worth index – takes into account:
- Lamb survival
- Lamb growth
- Wool production
- Carcase meat yield
