Dr Fischer also encouraged all ram breeders that are participants in SGA to look at scoring both breech wrinkle and bare area traits to develop the capacity to deliver breeding values for these traits as standard ASBVs.
The new Visual Breech Scores guide is a breech scoring system to help the sheep and wool industry investigate the long-term effects of breeding and selection of Merino sheep with breech characteristics known to reduce susceptibility to breech flystrike.
The guide is the first of its kind in Australia, and is based on the three 'indicator' traits – breech wrinkle, bare breech area and dag score.
Jules Dorrian, AWI Program Manager for Blowfly Control said the system is being used in AWI-funded research flocks to determine the heritability of these traits, and measure their impact, if any, on important production traits such as fleece weight, fibre diameter and body weight.
"The Visual Breech Scores guide has been developed for each trait and various age groups so they can be used at the same time as normal management tasks such as lamb marking, classing, crutching and shearing," said Ms Dorrian.
Australian Wool Innovation Limited
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