You are currently viewing CPT Lambing coming to a close for 2022!

CPT Lambing coming to a close for 2022!

Central Progeny Test lambing is coming to a close for 2022. This year the lambing period was once again hugely successful. Over the course of 3 weeks approximately 1800 CPT ewes have lambed down, having approximately 3500 lambs. Sheep Ireland technicians were on hand on each farm over the lambing period across 24 hours a day to collect valuable data that will be used to produce the genetic evaluations that farmers will see in sales catalogues later in the year. By now, all the ewes that conceived to AI have lambed down and it is the turn of th repeat ewes over the next few weeks. Events such as lamb fostering and hand rearing lambs can be very difficult to record accurately, especially when there are up to 15/20 fostering’s taking place on a flock in the peak of lambing. The most effective way we have found to track these events is to use pen boards on each individual lambing pen and to record all the relevant movement data at the point of the ewes and lambs entering the lambing pen. An example of this can be seen below! Take a look at why recording foster and pet lambs is so important! 

As well as data captured at lambing, the ewes and lambs will be weighed and health inspected 3 times throughout the coming year. All of this data will be contributing to the €uro-Star evaluations throughout the year.

Over the past 2 seasons, Natural Mating has been used as a means to get the ewes in lamb. As a result of this, the sire is not yet known for approximately half of the lambs. However, the DNA samples that are collected from all lambs at tagging have now been delivered to the lab, and results will begin to come back in the coming weeks where we will be able to determine the sires of all lambs.