WILLIAMS EWE PRODUCTIVITY TRIAL

Agriculture WA Narrogin

The ability of SAMM sheep to produce more lambs and more meat has earned them the number one ranking in the Williams ewe productivity trial in WA.

The trial started in 2000 when seven groups of about 50 lambs were delivered to the trial farm. They were given an even-up shearing and run together to minimise pre-trial environmental effects.They were mated as hoggets to the same group of terminal sires and their progeny and their own performance were compared.

The group of SAMM cross ewes from Kojonup were the only SAMM infused sheep in an otherwise Merino ewe trial and provided an insight to the strengths of the breed. The trial was linked with a previous ewe trial held at Katanning which compared five different Merino lines.

The teams were shorn three times during the trial period and although the SAMM cross ewes received some of the lowest prices for wool their total income from wool over the three year period was only $13.99/head less than the poorest returning Merino line.

The ewes were joined to terminal sires the first year and to performance bred Merinos for the next two years and the SAMM cross ewes stood out for their lamb production. Data from wool production was analysed using wether trial software and uses a five-year average to calculate wool price to eliminate the possible spikes and troughs that could occur if using an on-the-day value. Trial coordinator Ken Hart from Agriculture WA Narrogin office said the lamb information was not so straightforward, as there was no tool to facilitate the calculations.

He said the wool from the lambs was valued using the average team value for their mothers' wool and applying a formula. "This way we were able, to some extent, allow for differences in the quality of the lambs' wool. The comparative value of the wool produced by the SAMM cross lambs was not because of the quality, but rather that there was so much more of it because of the number of lambs," Ken said.

Because researchers were interested in genetic merit they did not calculate costs. "Having more lambs would increase the cost of shearing, etc., so the net value may actually be less than lambs with better quality wool but this has not been considered."

The sale value of the lambs was calculated using their live weaning weight and applying a value of $2/kg.  He said this was probably far from ideal, but there was not a tool that could calculate an average price over time. "Basically as lambs become more valuable the teams that perform better at lambing will improve relative to other teams."

The final year of data is yet to be finalised and the full results will be presented during the 2004 Agribusiness Sheep Updates in Perth in late July.

In the direct comparison the SAMM cross ewes had a weaning percentage of 91.5 (or 43 lambs) in 2001 and 117pc (55 lambs) in 2002 compared with the next best team that had and 57.8pc in 2001 and 80pc in 2002.

Average SAMM weights at weaning were 25.5 kilograms for lambs born in both years compared with the next best group at 23.6kg for 2001-drop lambs and 23.9kg for 2002-drop lambs.

The poorest performing team weaned 23.3pc lambs as maidens and 50pc as second lambers with lambs weaning weights as low as 20.4kg from maidens.

Table 2.

Lamb Production
2001 Drop

Team	Lambs Weaned	Weaning%	Totalkg/team	Av BWweight (kg)	Kgwool/team
1	21	47.7	447	21.3	30
2	24	54.5	506	21.1	29
SAMM	43	91.5	1097	25.5	75
4	18	42.9	367	20.4	13
5	10	23.3	212	21.2	21
6	24	50.0	540	22.5	38
7	26	57.8	616	23.6	38
Average	23.7	52.5	540.7	22.2	34.9

2002 Drop

Team	Lambs Weaned	Weaning%	Totalkg/team	Av BWweight (kg)	Kgwool/team
1	30	68.2	694	23.1	52.7
2	22	50.0	500	22.7	35.4
SAMM	55	117.0	1400	25.5	77.5
4	25	59.5	544	21.7	34.7
5	26	51.2	582	22.4	29.6
6	24	50.0	534	22.2	39.1
7	36	80.0	861	23.0	50.5
Average	31.1	68.0	730.7	23.1	45.6

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Table 3.

Wool Production
(Shows only the SAMMs in comparison with the best and least productive Merino teams)

Team 3  SAMM Merino Cross (Wool)
Wool ranking: 7
3yr return: $1972.45
Av/hd: $41.97

Year	No Ewe	Av GFW	AvMicron	AvYield	AvCFW	AvBW	AvPrice	AvWool$/hd	Total Wool$/hd
2001	47	2.9	20.2	59.2	1.7	n/a	771c	$13.04	$612.96
2002	47	4.2	21.4	60.4	2.6	n/a	675c	$16.47	$773.90
2003	47	3.1	21.9	59.8	1.9	63.8	671c	$12.46	$585.59

Team 5 (Haseldean Bloodline)
Wool ranking:1
3yr return:  $3799.99
Av/hd:$88.99

Year	No Ewe	Av GFW	AvMicron	AvYield	AvCFW	AvBW	AvPrice	AvWool$/hd	Total Wool$/hd
2001	43	3.4	18.4	66.5	2.3		952c	$22.07	$1059.24
2002	43	6.0	20.0	69.3	4.2		747c	$30.60	$1468.60
2003	42	4.6	20.0	68.1	3.1	57.5	818c	$25.75	$1235.99

Team 5 (Performance bred Merino)
Wool ranking:6
3yr return: $2567.09
Av/hd: $55.96

Year	No Ewe	Av GFW	AvMicron	AvYield	AvCFW	AvBW	AvPrice	AvWool$/hd	Total Wool$/hd
2001	48	3.0	19.6	61.3	1.9		908c	$16.31	$782.83
2002	45	4.9	20.7	63.4	3.1		747c	$22.80	$1025.94
2003	45	3.7	21.7	62.5	2.3	54.6	722c	$16.85	$758.32

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Gracefield SAMM
PO Box 726
Katanning WA 6317
Phone: 08 9821 2181 Fax: 08 9821 4240
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