Record keeping(Sheep)
Record keeping in sheep production is important because it gives a history of what has happened on the farm for a given period of time. In addition, it serves to improve farm management since it helps to trace animal origin and select breeding animals. Besides, record keeping provides figures for farm planning and budgeting.
Below is a list of records that may need to be kept. The value and relevance of the different types of records will vary with differing sheep production systems:
- Health records: including morbidity, mortality, signs and symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and vaccinations, etc.
- Feed consumption: this is difficult to estimate on farms where animals graze, but for capital intensive farm businesses, such as finishing or fattening operations, the amount of concentrate fed should be recorded to calculate profitability.
- Mating records: Sire, ewe and progeny identification is important in breeding, sale, and culling decisions.
- Lambing /kidding records, which include identity, ram ID, birth weight, date of birth, type of birth and sex.
- Milk production records: recording once weekly may suffice as this gives an indication of total milk production. Therefore, in dual-purpose sheep and goats, or even in meat types, a random sample of lactating females may be selected for recording their once a-week milk production.
- Growth/ weight records: kept periodically (possibly on a monthly basis) by recording the body weight of animals.
- Inventory: inventory of available animals on the farm and other assets.
- Carcass yield or dressing percentage: is a factor that has tremendous economic value, particularly in a community-based breeding program. This information could be obtained from slaughterhouses/abattoirs if the animals are slaughtered in slaughter houses.
Breeds
In Rwanda, we have two sheep breeds: the local sheep, Mérinos sheep breed for wool production and crossbreeds.
The local sheep is generally kept as cow companion and manure production. It originates from Africa and it is characterized by a long and fat tail.
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