“In order to increase the genetic gain of the national flock, more commercial flocks need to start performance recording,” according to Kevin McDermott of Sheep Ireland.
McDermott was speaking today (Friday, January 17) at the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) and Sheep Ireland Genetics Conference 2020, at the Heritage Hotel, Co. Laois.
Last year, Sheep Ireland celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Kevin said that since the database was set up – in 2009 – it has gone from strength to strength. However, he feels improvements can be made in certain areas in order to increase the genetic gain of the national flock.
He added: “All of the flock books in Ireland are sitting in the Sheep Ireland database, with every piece of data collected invaluable in our goal of increasing genetic gain.
The main topics of McDermott’s presentation included:
- The improvements in genetic gain made over the last few years – especially since 2014;
- How the Sheep Ireland database works and how it is of benefit to farmers;
- The importance of genotyping sheep;
- What the future holds for Sheep Ireland.
Scrapie genotyping
The big announcement this year was that the Sheep Ireland breed improvement programme was approved by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
McDermott explained: “There is no excuse for farmers not to be genotyping their animals. We are working with meat processing facilities on this matter to further increase our knowledge on this topic that will be of huge benefit to farmers.”
“There have been over 1,400 pedigree animals subsequently ordered via the Sheep Ireland website, bringing the total number of Irish sheep genotyped to date close to 40,000 head.
One of the major benefits of getting a DAFM scrapie result via Sheep Ireland is that the breeder can collect the sample themselves.
“The process to date required a vet to come on-farm and collect a blood sample from the animal being tested for scrapie genotyping.
“The vet was required to verify that the relevant blood sample was taken from the correct animal.
“However, the Sheep Ireland scrapie genotyping process now allows a DNA sample to be collected via a small ear tissue sample using a third tag.
I would encourage farmers that buy any sheep to genotype them straight away on arrival to the farm.
“The only way we are going to improve the database and offer farmers the best service and most up-to-date information is if more data is collected from commercial flocks.
“In essence, we need to get more farmers to start recording their flock’s performance, otherwise, we won’t make any progress,” McDermott concluded.