Breed for CH4nge Project update –  November 2024

Breed for CH4NGE: is a three-year initiative funded through DEFRA’s Farming Innovation Programme.

The goal is to identify the best breeding strategies to breed productive, efficient maternal sheep with a naturally low carbon footprint.

The project will develop EBVs and gEBVs for ‘new’ environmental traits and use these alongside existing measures of ewe efficiency to develop a selection index that will help to identify the best breeding sheep to reduce methane emissions from the flock.

The index developed as part of the project will combine measures of ewe efficiency and ‘environmental’ traits, related to methane emissions, to rank breeding sheep on their potential for reducing the flock carbon footprint.  This will sit alongside the Signet economic index allowing breeders and ram purchasers to rank animals on either or both indexes to suit their specific needs.

Additional trait data is being collected within the project to ensure that an optimum index that strikes the best balance between traits, and can be used for sustainable improvements benefit productivity, while also reducing carbon footprint. For example, ewe body condition score is monitored over the whole production cycle so that we understand the relationship between the new traits and the ability of ewes to thrive in our production systems.