The overall winners of the FBD LambPlus awards will be announced next Wednesday, March 3rd at 8pm and will be published in the Irish Farmers Journal next Thursday, March 4th. The announcement will be made online and will be published on the Sheep Ireland website, Facebook page and Twitter account. There are six finalists, across two categories, each hoping to take home the top prize.
The first category is the highest achieving LambPlus flock with a total prize fund of €2,000.
The overall winner of the highest achieving flock will receive an engraved trophy, a framed certificate, and a cheque for €1,000. The two other finalists will each receive a framed certificate and a cheque for €500.
The second category is the most improved LambPlus flock with a total prize fund of €1,000.
The overall winner of the most improved flock will receive an engraved trophy, a framed certificate, and a cheque for €500. The two other finalists will each receive a framed certificate and a cheque for €250. These awards are kindly sponsored by FBD and Sheep Ireland are very grateful for their generous support.
The awards are an opportunity for Sheep Ireland to give recognition to the breeders who are leading the way in performance recording and genetic gain and to those flocks that have made a significant improvement over the past number of years. The three nominees for the Highest Achieving LambPlus flock are Tim Keady (Oltore Belclares), Maria Philpott (Duhallow Charollais) and David O’Gorman (Carrowbaun Charollais). These three breeders are at the top of their game with all three boasting DQIs of above 90%. The nomination as a finalist for this award is the culmination of many years of dedicated breeding to improve the flock’s €uro-Star ratings and index accuracies.
The three finalists for the Most Improved LambPlus flock are Martin Murphy (Montybally Texels), Enda Turley (Newbridge Texels) and Neil & Ann Ford (Kilbride Vendeens). All three of these flocks have made significant genetic gain over the past number of years through improved breeding strategies and performance recording. Although these three flocks may not yet have the high €uro-Star values of the highest achieving flocks they are working every bit as hard to improve with each flock having an impressive DQI score of 90% or above.
All LambPlus flocks are automatically entered into the awards simply by being a member of LambPlus. The flocks are then pitted against each other with flock linkage, DQI, €uro-Star values and index accuracies all being assessed to rank the flocks. When the top three flocks for each category are finalised, they are interviewed by a member of the Sheep Ireland board to gain further information on their breeding strategies and performance recording. Both the flock data and interview proceedings are considered when choosing the overall winner of each category.
We would once again like to thank FBD for their generous sponsorship and to congratulate all the finalists on their nomination. We hope these awards will give a renewed motivation to all LambPlus flocks to reach for the stars in 2021.