The Project
The RamCompare project has been running since 2015 and is now in its ninth lambing season. The pilot project is designed to trial strategies for capturing commercial data collected from slaughter lambs in the UK sheep industry. It is similar to central progeny tests that are taking place in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.
Phase I
The first stage of the project developed a network of six commercial farms that used artificial insemination (AI) and single-sire mating to produce a crop of over 500 lambs per farm per year. In the UK sheep industry the sire of slaughter lambs is not usually known, so this approach has enabled sire information to be collected and commercial lamb data to be tracked from birth to slaughter.
67 rams from five breeds – Texel, Suffolk, Charollais, Hampshire Down and Meatlinc – were tested across these flocks over the 2016 and 2017 lambing seasons. The rams were representative of the top 20 per cent of their breed based on their estimated breeding values (EBVs) and the AI sires had good genetic linkage to other pedigree flocks.
Data from their lambs was collected from birth through to slaughter. This data was evaluated to see whether its inclusion in the rams’ genetic evaluations identifies genetic differences between sires and improved the accuracy of genetic predictions. A ranking of the tested rams, based on commercially important traits, was generated at the end of the first stage of the project in November 2017.
Phase II
The second stage of the project increased the number of farms involved, the breeds involved and enabled the geneticists to spend time assessing data collected on carcase primal weights and shear force. The number of rams nominated and selected increased, enabling a greater diversity of breeding lines to be assessed. The project now includes progeny data from all Terminal sire breeds.
Phase III
AHDB, QMS and HCC recognise how vital animal breeding and genetics are for the future of the sheep industry and remain committed to the support of this project as a major part of their technical activity.
Announced in spring 2021, the joint-levy support will:
- Provide a commercial performance testing service for recorded rams
- Promote performance recording to demonstrate the economic benefit of using superior genetics
- Widen the collection of abattoir phenotypes to include commercial farm data, while investigating how abattoir traits are assessed within Signet’s Terminal Sire evaluations
- Support data collection and artificial insemination (AI), to establish additional “bolt-on” projects where producers are encouraged to come together to build these valuable industry datasets
- Develop understanding of the genetic link between traits measured on farm and those derived from slaughter data
- Provide feedback as to whether current pedigree recording strategies (including the use of CT) within ram breeding flocks are fit for purpose, providing an accurate series of proxy traits on which to base ram selection or whether new approaches are required to accelerate genetic gain within the national flock, aligned to commercial breeding objectives.
There are even a couple of short videos about RamCompare posted online