National Workshop – Feed intake and efficiency measures in sheep final report
Sheep industry scientists from around Australia with an interest in genetics and feed efficiency collaborated to identify effective breeding and management opportunities.
| Project start date: | 08 April 2021 |
| Project end date: | 30 September 2021 |
| Publication date: | 06 April 2022 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep, Lamb |
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Summary
The purpose of this project was to convene a national workshop of around 30 industry scientists to review feed intake and efficiency research for sheep. The workshop was used to identify gaps and opportunities for collaborative research to inform and implement a targeted and effective breeding and/or management program for sheep that will ensure the industry remains competitive at a system level for the next 20 years.
Objectives
• Discuss what constitutes efficiency at an individual and system level of sheep production (achieved successfully)
• Identify gaps in knowledge and understanding of feed intake traits for sheep (achieved)
• Seek consensus on the appropriate technical measures and equations for sheep and make recommendations and preliminary plans for collaborative research (achieved partially)
• Draft a national framework for a collaborative research program to improve the breeding and management of more efficient sheep (limited progress)
Key findings
• Variation in feed intake exists between sheep, and this will lead to variation in many measures of efficiency, but it is unlikely that partial efficiency of protein and fat deposition vary. For these reasons it is important to clearly define what is meant be efficiency at the animal level versus variation in efficiency between sheep, dependent on the definition of efficiency.
• Residual Feed Intake for grazing sheep has a different value to more intensive livestock industries like poultry, pigs and perhaps even cattle. The heritability of RFI appears to (or is suspected to) change in relation to breed, age (repeatability), diet (grain or grazing), physiological status, time of year etc.
• By selecting for Residual Feed Intake there are likely to be physiological changes in the rate of maturity and body composition that must be considered before selection indexes are developed for sheep.
• Non-genetic approaches to improving feed efficiency are likely to have higher and more immediate payoffs to genetics but first we must invest in developing technology that can measure grazing feed intake accurately.
Benefits to industry
Breeding for improved feed efficiency is seen by geneticists as an attractive long-term goal due to its permanent cumulative nature. Deriving the genetic parameters required to include feed efficiency in a selection index will be a long term and expensive process, however there are several non-genetic priorities that are likely to have shorter term, higher payoffs. This workshop and the discussions and development that will follow identified limitations in parameter definition. The results will inform priorities to ensure more cost effective use of research funds for genetic improvement in the sheep industry.
MLA action
It has been recommended that targeted research be carried out in the following three areas
1. Common understanding and language around feed efficiency
2. Methodology, what needs to be measured and how this should be done
3. System modelling to focus on the value of feed efficiency traits and inform selection indexesIt has been recommended that targeted research be carried out in the following three areas
Future research
A clear outcome was that the diversity of management and environments within the Australian sheep industry presents complications for the application of genetic parameters for feed efficiency. Future research priorities should include developing better tools to measure grazing feed intake, determining the genetic gain in efficiency relative to what is possible by other methods and how feed efficiency and correlations between feed efficiency and other traits varies with different diets and across environments. This should be combined with whole farm modelling to estimate the value of potential improvements.
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For more information Contact Project Manager:Peta Bradley |
