Weekly Update: 29/04/16

April-30th-deadline-cover-300x274LambPlus Deadline (30th April)

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the cut-off point – after this date any lamb entered on the database will not receive €uro-Star evaluations for the year, this has resulted in a very busy week in the office as breeders are calling with queries on how to enter the information. The vast majority of breeders seem to have a positive experience regardless of former experience on a computer, and for people who were not confident using the screens for the first time we have talked them through it. The quality of data appears to be increasing year after year as breeders become more familiar with the program, which in turn will result in more evaluations for everyone.

We would like to remind breeders that every ewe in the flock should have something recorded against her for the year (ie, Lambed / Barren / Aborted / Not mated), this can all be done through the lambing page. For ewes that have been sold/died throughout the year these should be recorded as so. This can be done by finding the ewe on the flock inventory, click on the ewe and click on the ownership tab. This keeps flock details tidy and easier to manage

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CPT (40 day weights)

We are currently in the process of collecting the 40 day weights from the CPT flocks. All ewes and lambs are being weighed and scored for body condition, lamness, dagginess and mastitis. All this information is hugely valuable in generating more accurate evaluations for the bloodlines involved. It is also important to note that these ewes’ sires would have been in the CPT between 2010 and 2014, so we are still generating a lot of data for those bloodlines years after the rams were used to mate with ewes. It is this data that is most useful for the Replacement index