Sheep Ireland in conjunction with Teagasc are facilitating Ovidata, which is a European Innovation Partnership project assessing the use of genomic technologies for Irish sheep farmers.  With year one now over, it has been a successful one in terms of allocating full flock parentage to the commercial flocks involved. Sheep Ireland have identified major variation in ram performance within and across all 6 flocks involved in Ovidata. This information would never have been known without allocating parentage via genomics. Other interesting findings from year one is the number of lambs being sired by various rams within ram groups – all Ovidata flocks mob-mate their ewes. Some rams are siring very few lambs while the opposite can be seen for others. We also identified infertile rams that didn’t sire any lambs. All this would never have been known outside of OviData. The major benefits from the DNA parentage allocation will come in future years as the farmers involved make female replacement selection decisions based on the parentage information that is available. Each flock has a genomic results report via their Sheep Ireland account. All flocks now have a full genetic evaluation profile with €uroStar indexes for all sheep so each farmer can make very informed breeding decisions based on indexes and raw performance data leading to more profitable and efficient sheep enterprises.

This month has seen a wrap up of the pre-mating flock visits. Ovidata flocks receive flock visits at least 3 times annually – this year Sheep Ireland visited during recording of 40 days weights and weaning weights as well as pre-mating. Take a look at Eamon Wall during a flock visit this year below.

Please follow the progress of Ovidata on the twitter page.

For more information on how to use these exciting new screens please contact Sheep Ireland on 023 8820451 or email on [email protected]