Ultrasound Scanning 2015
A large number of flocks continue to be visited for Ovigen (12 flocks) and Ultrasound scanning (30 flocks) purposes each week. Visits to some individual LambPlus flocks are being delayed until data issues are resolved. Sheep Ireland are insisting that an event is recorded for every ewe in a LambPlus flock for 2015. Many flocks have achieved this and have marked ewes as lambed, sold, dead, aborted, barren or not mated (ewe lambs only). However a number of flocks have not carried out this tidy up and the number of ewes listed in their flocks are grossly inaccurate. These flocks will not be visited for Ovigen purposes and may not be Ultrasound scanned. The DQI (Data Quality Index) of these breeders flocks will also be severely affected and may prevent the publishing of €uroStar evaluations for the flock.
Catalogue entries for premier ram sales are being prepared by some breed societies at present and we are prioritising Ultrasound scanning for these breeds. Due to the number of flocks left to visit for scanning we simply will not have all LambPlus flocks scanned in advance of the catalogue generation for each sale. We will however attempt to scan the breeders intending on attending each premier sale. We encourage breeders attending their respective breed premier sales to contact us if they have not already been scanned. We will do our best to accommodate any such breeder as soon as possible. As mentioned above, it is critical that all scanning breeders have the required flock data recorded on the Sheep Ireland database. All lambs being ultrasonically scanned need to be tagged with the official NSIS tag. Full requirements for the scanning visit were circulated to all breeders by letter a number of weeks ago.
Sheep 2015
Last Saturday June 20th Sheep Ireland were present at Sheep 2015. This was a fantastic event and lived up to its billing as the biggest sheep event of the year. A huge crowd attended on the day with an estimated 12,000 people visiting the site in Athenry. The feedback on the day and since the event has been universally positive. Huge credit must go to the organising committee and Teagasc staff who ensured that absolutely every detail was taken care of on the day.
Sheep Ireland had a very strong presence at the event and demonstrated the benefits of the €uroStar Indices to farmers throughout the day. Despite challenging lamb prices the optimism among farmers on the day was very encouraging and we hope that many went home believing that a breed improvement programme for sheep is of critical importance for our industry going forward. Some images from the day below.
