Weekly Update: 17/02/17

Hill sheep parentage recording

Sheep Ireland is continuing to work with Hill sheep groups around the country to establish parentage recording. The first step for all of these groups is to establish a formal flockbook whereby animals can be pedigree registered and tracked if they move between breeders throughout their life.

This week we posted out lambing sheets to all hill sheep breeders interested in parentage recording. These breeders have already received lambing notebooks for the 2017 season. The recent Teagasc hill sheep conference held in Killarney, parentage recording and performance recording was focused on a number of times. Kevin O’Sullivan (Teagasc advisor) touched on the current level of hill recording in Ireland, while Ann McClaren from SRUC in the UK gave a presentation on ‘A Scottish Perspective to Improving Hill Sheep Productivity’. Ann focuses a large part of her talk on the potential benefits that can be accrued on hill farms using genetic indexes.

Click here for the full conference programme containing each speakers full paper.

 

Glanbia Sheep Event

Last Wednesday (Feb 15th) Sheep Ireland presented at the Glanbia Sheep Event held in Woodenbridge, Co. Wicklow. This was a great event which attracted a very large attendance. A wide range of topics were discussed on the night including markets, genetics, health and nutrition. Snippets from the night can be found on the Glanbia Agribusiness Twitter here.