B.MMS.1503 - Bredwell Fedwell – Phase 4
| Project start date: | 30 May 2015 |
| Project end date: | 30 April 2021 |
Summary
This project aimed to coordinate delivery of BredWell FedWell sheep (phase 4) workshops, to increase the knowledge, skills, and confidence of producers to achieve nutritional and genetic improvements in the flock. Workshops aimed to teach participants how to increase enterprise profitability, develop a breeding objective, improved reproductive performance, and create energy budgets. This training program was aimed to be delivered to 1,600 producers and 50 agents over a three-year period, where the principal target audience was commercial producers.
Objectives
BWFW sheep compliments the Sheep CRC program, RamSelect, and encourages producers into follow up opportunities such as LifeTime Ewe Management that further facilitate adoption of key management practices. The objectives of the workshop are that participants will:
•Recognise that Australian Sheep Breeding values (ASBVs) are an important tool that can be used to improve their enterprise profitability,
•Have the ability to start to develop a breeding objective for their enterprise,
•Recognise the likely impacts of improving ewe nutrition on reproductive performance and flock profitability, and
•Have the ability to do a simple energy budget for their ewe flock.
Progress
Monitoring and evaluation results showed increased knowledge in participants. Where participants were asked a technical fact e.g. best time to pregnancy test there was dramatic shift in knowledge in before and after the workshop attendance (34% to 72%) and a dramatic drop in “unsure”. The confidence in having a written sheep breeding goal jumped from 30% to over 90%. Condition scoring skills raised by 2 units out of 10 which is a positive outcome given than confidence was quite low to begin with.
MLA action
MLA continues to deliver the Bred Well Fed Well workshops to producers to enable them to boost productivity through a genetics and nutrition regime suited to their environment and markets.
More information
| Project manager: | Alana McEwan |
| Contact email: | amcewan@mla.com.au |
