SHOW JUDGING UNDER FIRE

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30448, 23 May 1964, Page 9

SHOW JUDGING UNDER FIRE

Show judging came in for sharp criticism when Professor A. L. Rae, professor of sheep husbandry at Massey University, was questioned after he had presented a paper on improvement of sheep by selection, at the Lincoln farmers’ conference.

“Show judging generally stresses points that are of comparatively little importance in the economic merit of the animal,” he said. From the point of view that I have explained the economic merit of the animal—what it rates in £ s d—decides what is gOod and bad.

“In that show judging has led to emphasising minor points in the economic merit of the animal, the emphasis of show judging has been bad. “Show judging and breed society standards tend to list large numbers of breed characteristics. The only quibble I have with that is the more characteristics you breed for the slower the progress will be with each character. The simplifying of objectives and bringing them down to things that are of real economic merit is the most important thing in the selection of any type of livestock. “If you look at the animals that are making progress—poultry, dairy cattle and pigs —each of the breed organisations has made up quite clearly what it will breed for —always a small number of characteristics and always .clearly defined.” In discussing aims of beef cattle selection and methods for achieving these, Mr R. A. Barton, senior lecturer in sheep husbandry at Massey University, said that a difficulty lay in the attitude of the cattle breeder towards the task of breeding more productive animals. “He will have to jettison some long cherished ideas and perhaps cull some show winners but, in so doing, he will be contributing much to the future of the whole beef cattle industry.” Professor Rae said that it was necessary to define the

aim in improving the flock or breed with which the breeder was working. The greater the number of characteristics of the sheep which one set out to improve the weaker was the selection for each of them and therefore the slower the progress in changing each characteristic. It was therefore essential to keep the objectives as simple as possible. But, however much the objective was simplified, it was still necessary to select for several characters. It was therefore necessary to decide on the relative importance of the characters which one wanted to improve. Approach One way of approaching this problem was to ask the question, “to what extent does a change in each character increase the financial return from the sheep?” Several studies using this procedure had been made of the relative importance of characters of the Romney breed. In general they all indicated that over a wide range of conditions fertility ranked highest on the list of traits, followed by fleece weight, which in turn was more important than fleece grade, while conformation made a relatively insignificant contribution to economic merit. This approach had the advantage that it was directly related to the financial return that the commercial producer received.

It was one-sided in the sense that it gave no measure of the importance of such characteristics as hardiness or longevity. It also did not take into account the efficiency of conversion of feed to wool and lamb. Its main justification was that it did give immediately useful. information to act as a guide to selection while more basic information was coming to hand.

Among basic requirements of any plan for breed im-

provement, said Professor Rae, were the measuring and recording of the performance of individual animals and the appropriate analysis of the records in order to make selection decisions. The main essential in such an approach would be the development of a performance recording service to assist breeders with the problems of measurement and recording, to organise the analysis of records and to present the records in an appropriate form for the making of selection decisions. This service would also help in the interpretation and follow-up analyses of the information obtained. . . . In effect the service would supply the sort of assistance which the dairy industry has had for the last 30 years.

“It must be stressed that we are passing out of a leisurely era of agricultural evolution into a period where rapid and sustained progress must be made. It is clear from developments overseas that our present organisation of pedigree breeding just cannot cope on its own with the demands which will be placed on it, and that the obvious first step towards co-ordinated effort is the development of a recording system along the lines mentioned.”