Benefits from goat performance testing

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 30

Benefits from goat performance testing

Learning the skills necessary to select good quality goats at a young age should be one of the benefits to breeders with bucks taking part in the Central Performance Test.

The performance test has been running at the Templeton Research Station of the M.A.F. for the last year, with similar tests at Whatawhata and Waikeria now completing their second year. Mr Ross Moorhouse, of MAFTech at Rangiora, said as well as the learning of selection skills, the scheme provided breeders

with the opportunity to compare the performance of their bucks with others in the scheme. Bucks which test well would also probably have a selling advantage. An open day where the results of the first year of the scheme will be discussed will be held at Templeton on Thursday, December 15. The bucks and some of their kid and yearling fleeces will be displayed. Bucks from 64 breeders took part in the testing this year. Mr Moorhouse hopes a greater number will take part next year

and that breeders will enter several animals each.

The testing covers Angora, cashmere and cashgora goats. Growth rates, fleece weights, and fibre quality such as kemp and medullation levels are monitored while the animals are grown out under the same conditions. A series of “link" animals — which have at least one common parent — enable comparisons between goats at the three test sites.

Next year’s test planned to start in mb February.