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At a recent meeting, commercial farmers with Dorset sheep were discussing how important it was to select a ram that has been born as a twin.

In Autumn 2022 ten performance recorded hill flocks measured their lambs, assessing both individual FECs (for Strongyles and Nematodirus) and an immune response to worm challenge that is measured via blood samples, referred to as IgA. Measures were taken by farmers and vet and then assessed by Techion (for FEC) and Biobest (for IgA).

This webinar series, in partnership with the British Society Animal Science (BSAS) and Teagasc (Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority) aims to share the most recent research findings investigating methods to reduce emissions from livestock agriculture and how we can apply this directly to farm. 

Within our terminal sire breeding programmes we are often asked to put a commercial value on the genetic improvement we make in enhancing growth rate and conformation. While it is relatively easy to understand the value of increasing a lamb’s carcase weight, carcase conformation grade or changing fat classification, it is far harder to determine the impact of reducing days to slaughter.

We recognise the importance of generating consistency in the monthly breeding values published by Signet.

While the ranking of animals will change as new data is added to the genetic evaluation, breeders generally wish to avoid changes that lead to their animals re-ranking - unless the index of their favourite ram goes up of course! However, as time moves on the team of geneticists at SRUC do make recommendations on ways to enhance our evaluations and if it is going to help breeders to make better breeding decisions, then we try to take their advice.