Producing guidelines to record efficiency and resilience in small ruminants

Guidelines for recording efficiency and resilience traits in sheep and goats to ensure harmonised data collection across countries, supporting international breeding cooperation. Based on data from SMARTER, iSAGE, POCTEFA ARD1, ERA-GAS GrassToGas, and ICAR, the recommendations cover feed efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, health and disease, survival of offspring, behavioural traits, lifetime resilience, and environmental factors. Proxies for gold-standard traits are identified for practical on-farm use. Finalised for publication in ICAR guidelines to support academic, industry, and selection service stakeholders.