This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Bronwyn Clarke chatting to Mark about the research she's currently involved in, and the wealth of knowledge that she has around sheep genetics.

Bronwyn is an expert in genetics focused R&D and project management and has over 20 years of experience in the New Zealand and Australian Merino industry.

Bronwyn did not grow up around sheep, spending her childhood growing up in Papa New Guinea. Fast forward a few years, and Bronwyn completed her Bachelor of Science in Wool and Pastural Science in Sydney, and so the interest in sheep began.

She then completed a PhD at University of New England on quantitative genetics, simulating all of her sheep on her computer- the combination of Maths and Animal Science really appealing to Bronwyn.

A lot of Bronwyn's work has been in helping commercial farmers and breeders understand the use of genetics

The Merino Validation project was one that Bronwyn ran around 20 years ago- which set Mark up in his pHd with a wealth of carcass data already available to hand. They added over 100,000 records into the database over two years- which helped build up the information needed to get the genetic parameters, heritability and correlations with carcass traits and wool traits in merinos.

Bronwyn and Mark talk about the "twin effect", and how classing can biased against twins in the first few years of their life. In their current trial, they keep "cull" animals in the flock and track their progress. After the first few years, twins catch up with their single counterparts, which is something you wouldn't know if they had been culled as a lamb.

Bronwyn is now chair of AAABG, The Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics. Based in Australia and New Zealand for livestock scientists, breeders, educators, students and industry service providers. The major activity conducted by AAABG to achieve its objectives is an international conference held at approximately two year intervals.

Bronwyns aim is to get more farmers involved in the conferences, so we hope our listeners will get involved.

To find out more follow the link below. 
http://www.aaabg.org/aaabghome/
 
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