Producers make their decisions based on the best knowledge they have at the time, that’s according to north east sheep producer Hannah Marriott.
“I manage 3000 wool and meat ewes at Greta in north east Victoria, and my whole flock has electronic tags, giving me the ability to collect information on any individual animal’s performance,” Ms Marriott said.
“To actually make data-based decisions, I want to know the range, not just the average in any mob,” she said.
“My aim is to put an economic value on each animal at the end of the year.
“This will allow me to select on commercial value of the individual animal, rather than purely visual or mob level information.”
Ms Marriott said at first she started collating data on a small number of key traits such as, individual pregnancy results at scanning.
“That in itself is valuable information. In my flock, I knew that 35 per cent of ewes were pregnant to singles in two successive years. If I have to reduce numbers, they are likely to be the first to go,” she said.
“My advice to other producers who are interested in electronic tagging, is to start simply. For example, record the pregnancy status of ewes. Pregnancy scanning contractors should have the necessary equipment so there is no need to buy any equipment other than tags.
“The scanner should assemble a report at the end of the day. Over time, the pregnancy status of the ewes will be known and possibly from there, other profit drivers can be identified and measured.”
Ms Marriott uses Pedigree MatchMaker to link ewes with their lambs. By getting a weaning weight of lambs, she can get a litter weight weaned per ewe – a result that is proving to have remarkable variation in terms of kilograms (kg) of lamb weaned per kg of ewe live weight.
“This is one of the more important pieces of information, and also the hardest to get,” she said.
Recently, Ms Marriott obtained carcase information on 1900 lambs by hook tracking them through the abattoir.
“I received information on each carcase such as dressing percentage, (where there was a 20 per cent range), fat scores, lean meat yield, carcase trimming information and overall compliance.”
The next thing Ms Marriott is keen to achieve is combining eating quality measures with her on-farm production practices, ensuring her management decisions are optimising long term product quality and marketability of the product.
There is potential for a value-based payment system to be implemented, which will make all of this effort worthwhile. Ms Marriott plans to measure and record individual wool performance from the next shearing.
“Really, for me, it comes down to economics. If I can get a dollar value for each animal at the end of the year, and a benefit that is more than the cost of collecting the data, I will have the relevant information to make a more accurate decision at classing time,” she said.