4 days ago
Victorian sheep farmer makes breakthrough in bid to breed footrot-resistant sheep
A Victorian merino stud has bred its first line of footrot-resistant rams in a major step forward against a disease that costs the sheep industry more than $80 million a year.
The Kealy family in Edenhope has been working towards the goal for years but biosecurity restrictions and the lack of a breeding value for footrot in Australia have been stumbling blocks.
Australian sheep breeding values are a prediction of an animal's genetic merit for particular traits such as growth, eating quality, wool production, reproduction, and health.
Stud co-principal Elise Kealy said it was an exciting step.
"We have bred a line of rams which we are confident will have good footrot resistance, which will be a bit of a first for the industry," she said.
Footrot is a contagious disease that attacks the tissue between the horn and the flesh of a sheep's hoof, causing lameness and other problems.
"They lose weight, they don't lactate properly, their reproduction isn't as good, their wool production goes down," Ms Kealy said.
New Zealand has had a breeding value for footrot since 2020, but Australia does not have one yet.
"That means farmers in New Zealand can measure it, record it and select for it," Ms Kealy said.
"We can't do that and we also can't buy New Zealand semen or rams and bring them back here, for biosecurity reasons."
The breakthrough came when Ms Kealy happened upon a ram that had excellent natural resistance.
"There was a ram born and bred in Australian seven years ago and it had semen collected before it went to New Zealand," she said.
"Since then it's had four different age groups of progeny measured for footrot resistance and it's now sitting in the top 10 per cent of the industry for resistance.
"We were lucky enough to get some of that semen two years ago, and now we have one-and-a-half-year-old rams coming on with what we think will be very good footrot resistance."
Footrot expert Mark Ferguson helped develop the breeding value in New Zealand and is working on doing the same in Australia.
"We're closer than we've been before," he said.
"We've done a lot of work in New Zealand that's now being translated to Australia."
Footrot is more prevalent in places with persistently wet conditions such as New Zealand.
"The breeding value been just so powerful for those people in high rainfall areas who are challenged with foot health — places that have had footrot for literally 100 years," he said.
A footrot vaccine available in both New Zealand and Australia but Dr Ferguson says it is not a panacea.
"They've been a great management tool, but they're not a silver bullet," he said.
"But by actually shifting the population to a more resistant status, those management tools become more effective because you've got less disease around.
"So all of these things need to go together to give farmers a great combination of things they can use to keep feet health up to the standard they'd love to."
