Weighing of lambs for performance recording should be well under way by now.  Lambs should be weighed around 90 days old in order to identify the best and worst performing ewes.  Select Sheepware calculates both 56 day weights and 90 day weights for lambs, and credits the total back to their mothers.
The most recent version now includes further analysis of 90 days weights: Reared 90 day weight.  This takes account of lambs fostered on and off. Suppose a ewe has one lamb with 90 day weight of 27 kg with a lamb fostered on achieving 25 kg. Total 90 day reared weight is 52kg.  Likewise a ewe with 3 lambs, total weight of 80kg, might have a reared 90 days weight of 60 when the weight of the fostered off lamb is deducted. This gives much more representative picture of the milkiness and rearing ability of the ewes.
Interestingly, with the first users having downloaded the update and reviewing the new 90 day reared weight, the weight of the ewe’s own natural lamb seems to usually be greater than the weight of the fostered on lamb.
Continuing on with handling the fostering of lambs, the Agrident reader database has been updated to include both fostered off lamb details and foster on lamb details.  When the user scans a ewe with a fostered on lamb, the details of both her own and the fostered on lamb are shown on the ewe record card shown on the reader screen.  This can be useful when moving sheep around and you want to be sure that 2 lambs are going with a ewe which has a foster. Likewise when moving a ewe which had 3 lambs, the data on the reader screen shows which one has been fostered off so that you can be sure you’ve got the correct lambs moving with the mother.
Once the lambs have been weighed at 90 days, the selection of best and worst ewes can be done.  By sorting and filtering the best ewes according to reared 90 day weights, alerts can be set for the best ewes.  Select Sheepware then allows alerts to be set on the female offspring of these ewes, so they can be considered as potential replacements. Alerts set against animals transfer into the Agrident readers to enable efficient drafting of the selected animals.  Agrident readers display the alert and also give a loud audible beep when an animal is scanned which has an alert set. Final selection from the pool of potential replacements can be made according to visual assessment.
Apart from identifying the best and worst performing ewe, Select Sheepware also allows selection according to the average 90 day lamb weights for rams used.
Please contact TGM if you need help with sorting, filtering, selection and setting alerts for drafting.

New Zealand Sheep Improvement Limited (SIL) recording and evaluation database compatibility
A number of UK and Irish breeders use the New Zealand SIL evaluation database. Select Sheepware now creates the necessary SIL reports which need to be sent to SIL for the evaluations to be done.  The EBV import allows the SIL genetic valuation to be imported back into Select Sheepware once the results have been calculated. Sheep Ireland and SIGNET UK are also fully compatible, both to send raw data for evaluation and to import the results once the evaluation results are available.