Honestly, without this information and the training in how to take the various measurements, one can only state their emotional opinion as to how good their sheep are, and emotional assessments quite frankly don't hold any water as far as I am concerned...there is the potential for people to be cheated by some other breeder's overly optimistic assessment of the sheep they are selling. We all embrace our sheep in our hearts and love them dearly, so it is easy to understand the bias of other shepherds, but when it comes to trying to improve your herd, this subjective bias on the part of others can cost us an awful lot of money. This bias to a large degree can be avoided with the objective Icelandic system of evaluation.
When in attendance at the Vaginal AI Seminar in Iceland, we were not given the specific criteria which would enable us to assign a score to each of the body parts of our animals, but only how to take the various measurements. Being able to assign a score is not necessary in comparing our own animals to those in the Sire Catalog. The measurements along with being taught what the various body parts are supposed to "feel like" tell a complete enough story to help you pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of each of your individual animals, and the scores in the AI Sire Catalog tell you which of the sires would be most useful in compensating for the weaknesses of that particular sheep.
Above each ram in the AI Catalog are two lines of information in tan boxes. The top line of boxes is the measurements and scoring of that rams various body parts at age 5 months, the second line is his scoring at the age of 1 1/2 years. I crunched the numbers of all the horned Icelandics in Icelands 3 AI stations for the last 4 years, and came up with an average for them all, which can serve as a standard for us North Americans to judge our own animals against, once we know how to take the measurements. The standard for the 1 1/2 yr. old AI sires is published here in blue. The standard for those sires when they were lambs at their 5 month evaluation is in red. On the next page, my own animals' scores are in black. (I have to confess I was awfully pleased with the results!)
In the tan-colored scoring line above the sire's picture are a number of little boxes. After the box
with the year (Ar) of the sire's birth, there are 5 boxes of measurements. They are labeled "Pungi" (weight in kilograms {lbs. divided by 2.2} ), "Brjm" (chest circumference in cm's), "Spjald" (back broadness in cm's), "Fotl" (metacarpal length), and 3 measurements in one oblong box, consisting of "Omv" (eyemuscle depth), "fita" (backfat thickness), and "lag" (eyemuscle shape). The 10 boxes after those 5 are the scores for the various body parts, which we won't get into except to say that a score of '8' means basically "it's there, it's acceptible, and it's not defective." A score of '9' means it's really good, '9.5' is great, and 10 is perfect...except for the leg scoring, which is assessed a double score, i.e. '17' is very good,'18' is great, '19' is fantastic, and '20' is perfect.
Since we were taught how to measure but not how to score, we will concentrate only on the measurements part of the line, the first 5 boxes after the "year"(Ar) box. For the purposes of this webpage, we will drop the "Ar" box, and just use the 5 measurement boxes.
The "standard" I came up with (the average measurements of all the HORNED 1 1/2 year old AI sires over the last four years), was this:
Pungi Brjm Spjald Fotl Omv/ fita/ lag
(weight) (chest) (back broad) (canon bone) (eyemus.)/(backfat)/(eyemuscle shape)
86.06Kg 105.2cm 25.2cm 117.5mm 36mm / 5mm / 4
(189.6lbs.)
The "standard" I calculated for the measurements of the AI sires when they were lambs at their
5 month evaluation was the following:
44.9Kg 82.5cm 19.8cm 110mm 27.6mm / 3mm / 3.7
(98.9 lbs.)
On the next page I will publish the measurements again, and then for your enjoyment I will compare the measurements of my own adults and lambs against these AI sire "standards."
Please print off these 3 evaluation pages, take them with you to Reinbeck. After your "Vaginal AI
Seminar, they will mean a WHOLE LOT MORE to you!!!
