Breed Weights
04 Aug '24
What is this, and why do I care?
Internally, we calculate breed weights nightly which feed into the evaluation model.An important aspect of this calculation is that weights are generated at multiple levels, for example, we first calculate by cohort, then by herd, then by climate, then by breed, then by purpose.
The reason that it's important to generate weights at so many levels is because you want to use the lowest level weights applicable to the dataset.
Each time you move up a level, the predition becomes less reliable.
The weights below represent the purpose level evaluation, which in this case is:
BOVINE > BEEF > ALL BREEDS
The reason to publish these weights came about because New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Meat & Livestock Australia decided to light 9.5 million dollars of tax payer money on fire, seemingly with the goal of layering more bias into BREEDPLAN.
Why is this a waste of time?
The project is called "Southern Multi Breed project" and was limited to an average of ~25 sires from each breed.25 sires is a very small sample, and while the project does not specify how the sires were selected, it was suggested to me that the project selected high indexing sires according to BREEDPLAN.
A few issues here:
1. You first have to be a believer that BREEDPLAN is a good system, which I am not.
2. You then have to be a believer that the selected sires are broadly representative of the breed, which cannot be true from such a small sample.
3. Then you have to ignore the fact that evaluations at this level of adjustment are nothing more than vanity metrics. They are not useful or applicable to a breeding program.
4. Then you have to believe that the following environments are representative of the entire Southern region of Australia:
5. And here's the biggie...remember earlier in this post where I mention that we calculate these weights nightly? So, as soon as
progeny start dropping on a new sire, we are already incorporating that data into the evaluation.
By contrast, the Southern Multi Breed project is a snapshot in time, and the data is already out of date.
By contrast, the Southern Multi Breed project is a snapshot in time, and the data is already out of date.
Why do I have my knickers in a knot?
We find ourselves in a tough economic environment where every day people are hurting, the national debt is accelerating, and we don't see any signs of it slowing down.We are literally talking about shutting down regional hospitals while burning 2.1 million dollars per year to get an objectively worse result than if they had of just asked us for the weights.
What is the solution?
MLA needs to stand on their own two feet and compete as a market participant...no funding...no levies.There are too many snouts in the trough, and Government funding for the livestock sector filtered through MLA Donor Company is crushing any appetite for innovation and risk in the Australian agricultural sector.
Cut the funding, and let the private sector do what it does best!
So what are the weights?
GL - Gestation LengthBE - Birth Ease
FE - Fertility
BW - Birth Weight
WW - Weaning Weight
PW - Post Weaning Weight
Without further ado...enjoy the most useless vanity metrics you'll see today, but hey...at least we didn't spend 9.5 million dollars to write this blog post.
| Breed | GL | BE | FE | BW | WW | PW |
| Beefmaster | +2.50 | +0.00 | -0.43 | +0.94 | +0.11 | -0.08 |
| Black Angus | -0.72 | +0.00 | +0.16 | -1.75 | +0.00 | +0.04 |
| Brahman | +4.97 | +0.00 | -1.21 | +2.22 | +0.14 | +0.06 |
| Charolais | +3.29 | +0.00 | +0.36 | +0.04 | +0.09 | +0.08 |
| Droughtmaster | +3.63 | +0.00 | -1.60 | +2.97 | +0.01 | -0.01 |
| Hereford | +1.18 | +0.00 | +0.63 | -0.76 | -0.01 | +0.03 |
| Limousin | +4.81 | -0.03 | -0.24 | +2.61 | +0.08 | +0.07 |
| Murray Grey | -0.06 | -0.02 | -0.05 | -1.41 | +0.02 | +0.03 |
| Red Angus | +0.84 | +0.00 | -0.23 | -0.12 | -0.03 | +0.02 |
| Red Poll | +2.46 | +0.00 | +0.51 | +1.78 | -0.05 | -0.04 |
| Speckle Park | -0.71 | -0.01 | +0.41 | +0.78 | -0.03 | -0.04 |
