CPT Lambing has commenced

All Central Progeny Test flocks have now started their lambing. The intensive data capture is going very well so far. Weather conditions have been favorable enough to allow ewes and new-born lambs outdoors, which is critical to free up individual lambing pens within the sheds. Grass availability across all the flocks is excellent given the extremely mild winter period this year, so once lambs are strong enough to be let outside, ewes should have ample supplies of milk which will help to minimise issues with their lambs.

Commercial CPT Data critical to the €uro-Star genetic evaluations

• 2017 marks the seventh lambing season for the Sheep Ireland CPT programme. At this point Sheep Ireland have established a deep family tree for all ewes (especially younger breeding animals) within the programme. The short video below shows ewe 13291A from Andrew Maloney’s flock in Edenderry. This ewe was born into the CPT in 2013, sired by Texel ram Chessy Spot on (PNI11051). Her performance and that of all her lambs has been recorded by Sheep Ireland since 2013.
• Her two 2017 lambs are sired by a Belclare ram bred by Larry Barrett in Co. Carlow and owned by Mary Kelly in Co. Wicklow (LB131592). This ram is in the top 1% for the Belclare breed on the Replacement Index with a 71% accuracy. Follow us on Twitter for more regular updates from the farms.

Freshly tagged CPT lambs on the farm of Andrew Maloney video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjo2XuwHQPg

Please see some more images from this week’s CPT below