A Scottish sheep farming enterprise is involved in a major new project to drive genetic improvement in the sector.
Bowhill Estate, which stretches across 8,804 acres between the Yarrow and Ettrick Valleys in the Borders, is one of six farms involved in the RamCopmare project.
Part funded by Scots red meat levy body Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), the project started in May this year and will run over two breeding seasons until 2017.
It involves artificial insemination and single-sire mating with rams from five pedigree breeds with known genetics.
It will then follow the progeny of these rams along the supply chain, gathering lamb performance data from farms and abattoirs, to carry out a genetic evaluation of each breed.
Bowhill runs 4,500 breeding ewes, of which 200 Aberdale Blackface cross ewes have been put to a Texel, Suffolk, Meatlinc of Charollais ram supplied by the project, or two of the farm’s own recorded Texel stock rams.
A further 120 ewes will be artificially inseminated with semen from other rams involved in the project.
A crop of more than 500 lambs from these rams will be born in the middle of March next year, with data gathered throughout their lifespan from birth to slaughter.
After another batch of lambs has been put through the system, a ranking of the tested rams, based on commercially important trains, will be produced at the end of 2017.
Bowhill’s farm manager, Sion Williams, said: “From a farming point of view, this project is really exciting and the information generated will undoubtedly improve the genetics of the Scottish sheep flock and the connection between the ram breeder and the commercial lamb on the market.
“We have been using EID since 2008 so have a keen interest in how genetics can influence performance. From a business perspective it will be good to see how these rams perform against our own, which will allow us to make amendments to the breeding strategy and ram selection as a result.”
QMS knowledge transfer specialist, Michael Blanche, said: “Central Progeny Tests have had a huge effect on genetic improvement in sheep elsewhere in the world and this is the first time one is being established in the UK. It means we can compare different rams against each other in real commercial situations. It is an important step in allowing us to compare animals purely on performance genetics irrespective of breed.”
The other partners in the project are AHDB Beef & Lamb, Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales and Agrisearch. There is also support from Sainsbury’s Bit Data Agriculture R&D grant scheme, Randall Parker Foods, Dunbia and SRUC.