Better exploitation of lambing data to evaluate reproductive performance on a meat production sheep farm

Abstract

Using, an example, a study conducted on a meat production sheep farm in southern France, the authors propose a method for analyzing, retrospectively, breeding performance on the basis of information recorded in lambing registers, a type of record widely used by French sheep farmers. Three complementary investigation approaches may be developed by organizing this information in different ways :
- an analysis of seasonal and between-year variation of breeding performance at flock level ;
- an analysis of within-flock variability of individual performance (precocity, aptitude for out-ofseason breeding, regularity, prolificacy, longevity) resulting in an overall characterization of ewe lifetime performance ;
- a combined analysis associating the above approaches : the dynamics of production cycles can be calculated from this. These are the result of interactions between variations in husbandry and production the conditions and individual sheep behaviour. Developing this type of investigation and applying it to a diversity of sheep production systems could produce operational results for flock management and possibly also for selecting appropriate genetic material.