Breeding for breech strike resistance

摘要

At a recent Tasmanian woolgrowers workshop Dr Brian Horton (DPIW) and Dr Johan Greeff (sheep breeding specialist with Agriculture Western Australia) reviewed the latest research into how Merino breeders can select for breech strike resistance. WarrenHunt outlines some of the important points made at the workshop. If producers simply stop mulesing and do nothing else, they can expect about a 10-fold increase in the incidence of flystrike in their flock. The data in the table 1 shows rates of breech strike in CSIRO's Armidale Breech Strike Resistance Flock across four years (2006-2009). As expected, it is the sheep with high levels of breech-wrinkle that account for most of this increase in unmulesed sheep.