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Breeding Goal

Our Breeding Goal

The “best” animal for breeding is the highest ranking for the particular breeding goal.

The breeding goal may involve a single trait, such as growth rate to the yearling stage, but with more information, multiple traits can be measured as BVs and weighted according to economic impact to produce a single index such as the Breeding Worth (BW) index in dairy cattle.

Traits that contribute to a breeding goal should meet the requirements that they are heritable, have economic significance and can be accurately measured. The “best” animal to produce venison is fast growing, fertile and easy to handle. All three traits are heritable to varying degrees. They are economically important, and can be measured.

The traits that have dominated selection decisions in the deer industry are antler traits (velvet and trophy), with relatively little emphasis being placed on growth rate. Demand for growth rate genetics now warrants a programme focussed on the objective of efficient venison production. For this reason Deer Improvement’s breeding goal does not include antler traits.

We continue to collect data on temperament and expect that a reliable Temperament BV will soon form part of our breeding goal.

Another trait of interest to deer farmers is mature hind weight. Deer Improvement believes that some increase in the size of the average commercial hind is necessary to improve the mothering ability required to raise a fast growing calf. Although it is recognised that larger animals have a higher maintenance cost, it is expected that this will be dwarfed by the benefits of dramatically increased growth rate enabling progeny to be killed at peak schedule prices before the next crop of fawns arrive. DEERSelect is researching the development of an economic index for venison production and we are interested to see what emphasis is placed on mature weight. Farmers can be sure that Deer Improvement will focus its resources on whatever breeding goal is deemed appropriate and demanded by our customers.

Deer Improvement sees a bigger threat to the deer industry in the form of inbreeding. This practice is widespread among studs who do it knowingly, and exacerbated in commercial herds because of heavy use of expensive stags or simply because of the absence of recording systems. Inbreeding is an insidious problem because it is not obvious until serious damage has been done. It can be expected to have a negative effect on fertility, productivity and general soundness.