Tomás O’Leary is a Ovidata participant and a Teagasc BETTER sheep farmer who took part in the Virtual Sheep Week held by Teagasc.

Commercial farm data makes up over 50% of all data contributing to Irelands €uroStar sheep indexes annually. Sources of this commercial data include; Sheep Ireland’s Central Progeny Test (CPT), Teagasc Research and demonstration farms, independent commercial farms and OviData, a Agri-EIP project. Tomás explains the benefits he has obtained by performance recording his flock and using this reports generated from the data collected to identify superior genetics. OviData is using the latest DNA genomic technology to assign extremely accurate full parentage to lambs after birth. Known parentage allows the data to be used in genetic evaluations, thus unlocking the full potential of the data on participating farms for the benefit of the farmers involved.

Tomás mentions (watch video below)

some of the main benefits of recording and capturing data is linking the lamb to the ewes, so that any problems with the ewe can be linked to young stock, and persistent problems can be identified. In six months time when picking ewe lambs, having the data recorded on the ewes aid the selection of replacement females.