RamCompare, the UK’s national progeny testing initiative, is seeking new commercial farms to join the project this season across England and Wales.
RamCompare host farms provide around 300 commercial ewes of a uniform breed type, which are mated to terminal sire rams provided by the project, using single-sire, natural-service mating groups or artificial insemination (AI).
Jointly funded by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC), RamCompare aims to gather valuable performance data from commercial lambs to drive improvements in the sheep industry.
Using this robust dataset, new abattoir-derived breeding traits have been developed to provide estimated breeding values such as carcass weight, conformation and fat class, as well as primal yield, meat tenderness and days to slaughter.
The project has shown how commercial farmers can improve efficiency and reduce the cost of lamb production through the selection of superior rams, while providing breeders with important information to enhance their breeding policies and increase rates of genetic gain.
RamCompare
RamCompare project coordinator, Bridget Lloyd, said: “This is a great opportunity for host farms to benefit from using top genetics within their flock.
“They have the chance to use rams with high health and genetic merit within their flock, they will get support to benchmark their flock performance against other project farms and the opportunity to engage with a small group of innovative likeminded farmers.
“The insights gained from the project have contributed to the development of Signet’s national terminal sire evaluation, helping commercial farmers select superior, performance-recorded rams whose progeny can produce higher-value carcasses and reduce production costs,” she added.
To be considered as a host farm, the following requirements need to be met:
- Provide 300 commercial ewes;
- Use high-index, performance-recorded terminal sire rams supplied by the project;
- Ewes must be single-sire mated;
- Data must be collected on lambs using electronic identification (EID) from birth to slaughter;
- Lambs will be raised as one management group within a fast-finishing system
Optional artificial insemination can be organised for 90-120 ewes as part of the project and host farms will receive funding to support data collection.
To date, RamCompare has shown which traits can be used to drive productivity and optimise flock potential and has reportedly identified differences in progeny values worth £4-6/lamb.
This indicates the opportunity to enhance flock profitability through careful ram selection, the company reported. Research has also been started to assess genetic influences on primal yield and meat quality, namely tenderness.
