This week seen the visit of the fifth flock involved in OviData, which was that of Patrick Dunne in County Wicklow. Patrick’s flock consists of up to 220 commercial ewes. Sheep Ireland technicians visited the flock yesterday (Thursday 18th October). As part of the OviData project, several phenotypes must be taken from the sheep.  Lameness, body condition score (BCS) and dag scores are among the phenotype’s taken, with any incidences of mastitis or other defects identified during health inspections being recorded. Tissues samples for DNA extraction were also collected from the ears of the sheep, once the DNA is extracted from the tissue samples, the results will be used for parentage verification and for further research.

The gallery below is some of the images captured during the visit to Patricks farm.