Impact of Key Messages on Accuracy of Sheep Breeding Programs

Abstract

Sheep Genetics has been providing genetic evaluation services to the Australian Sheep Industry for Terminal, Maternal and Merino breeders since 2005. This paper looks at the average performance of flocks for genetic gain and other data quality metrics over two five year periods for the flocks that are represented in both time periods. These averages were compared using a t-test for significance. All three analyses have made significant improvements in the amount of pedigree being contributed to the analyses. Merino and maternal analyses have had significance differences in index gain. The terminal analyses were the only analysis that showed a significant improvement in the proportion of effective progeny, while no analyses improved the index accuracy over the study.