Sheep Ireland were delighted to be invited to speak with the West Kerry Scotch Mountain Sheep Breeders Society last week (Wed 9th Feb) in Dingle Mart. There was a good attendance on a brisk cool night in West Kerry. Dinny Galvin the Chairman of the group opened the discussion.
David Coen of Sheep Ireland began by explaining the developments of the Sheep Ireland database over the last number of years. Their continued enhancement of the website, to make it as user friendly as possible and the development of the Sheep Ireland App has led to more and more data being collected.
“The database and information that can now be provided to farmers on their flocks has developed significantly compared to when Sheep Ireland first started over 10 years ago.”
The introduction of “quick, efficient and manageable genotype collection” has allowed for Hill breeds to quickly develop a lot of information on their breeds. Genomics can now be used to determine the breed profile of all the most common lowland breeds, so with the collection of DNA from Hill breeds we will be able to protect from breed dilution from other strains of Hill sheep. This will insure the purity of the Dingle Sheep.
This group can use genomics to DNA verify the sires of all the lambs brought to the sale with 100% accuracy. Each genotyped animal will also will receive and Inbreeding result known as an “Inbreeding coefficient” this looks at the animals DNA and looks for similarities in the DNA strands.
“So we can determine through DNA if a ram is inbred or not without having any previous ancestry recorded.”
David also discussed the Hill ram criteria for the proposed Sheep Improvement Scheme. Which is dues to take place in 2023. With members showing a big interest in getting their rams genotyped. There was a demonstration on how to collect DNA samples from your stock sires, with two rams present in the ring being tagged and DNA collected for processing.
“Collecting DNA is a quick and easy process and not something that breeders should be afraid of” was the message going out.
Sheep Ireland would like to take this opportunity to thank group members Dinny Galvin and John Joe Fitzgerald for their huge contribution in organizing this well run evening. We look forward to working with the group over the next number of years.
