Accounting for the Cost of Reproductive Technologies During Selection in Sheep Breeding Programs

Abstract

Female reproductive technologies, such as MOET and JIVET, have been shown to increase the rate of genetic gain. However, they incur substantial costs to breeders using them. In this work, optimal contribution selection was used to find the balance between genetic merit, co-ancestry and cost of reproductive technologies in sheep breeding programs. To offset the cost of using the reproductive technologies, breeders received a premium based on the value of the genetic gain achieved by the ram buyers. Australian terminal sire and Merino breeding programs were simulated, using industry indexes. For the terminal sire breeding program, the premium needed to be greater than 50% beforen reproductive technologies were used. In the Merino breeding program, where the standard deviation of the index is 3 times higher than the terminal index, reproductive technologies were used with lower premiums (6% and 32% premiums, respectively). For both breeding programs, the rate of genetic gain increased with more allocations of reproductive technologies. There was also a higher proportion of JIVET assigned compared to MOET, due to a lower cost per lamb. The benefits of genomic selection were greatest in the merino program, due to the higher use of JIVET. Assigning costs of reproductive technologies allows for robust and practical breeding programs to be designed.