NSIP – What Is in It for Me?

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For most of us, raising sheep is a business. All successful businesses continually and objectively evaluate their products for performance, accuracy, and predictability. Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) as provided by the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP), allow shepherds to convert performance records for economically important traits into information about an animal's genetic merit while increasing accuracy and predictability for those traits. EBVs provide a science-based selection tool to improve or enhance preferred traits but do not take the place of direct evaluation of an animal's physical appearance, health, or structural correctness. There are multiple ways to use the power of…

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Planning for the Next Generation

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The SID Sheep Production Handbook states that a key limiting factor in genetic improvement is "accuracy of selection". In other words, to make the most improvement in our flocks, we have to accurately assess the impacts our sires (and dams) are having on their offspring. We need to identify superior sires as lambs and then confirm their superiority by evaluating their offspring. If they're not passing it on, it doesn't matter how good they look now or how good they looked as lambs. If you want to make the best decisions in the spring when you evaluate their offspring, you…

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