Ultrasound Muscle and Backfat Scanning

• Another scanning season is about to begin again soon. The first flocks scanned will be some early lambing Vendeen breeders who tend to lamb down ewes from mid-December, but many other breeds begin lambing soon after Christmas so we will be making contact with these flocks soon also.
• Breeders interested in scanning in 2016 must notify Sheep Ireland by text before May 22nd. A letter has been circulated to all LambPlus breeders to notify them of this date and of the benefits of carrying out Muscle and Backfat scanning on their pedigree lambs. This text notification is critical to help us in the process of organising flock visits.
• For a full summary of the benefits associated with carrying out Ultrasound Muscle and Backfat scanning on the Sheep Ireland website, just click here.

Sheep Ireland Ram Sale 2016

One of the main criteria required to enter this sale is carrying out Ultrasound canning. Other criteria will be accuracy% and Data Quality Index (DQI). All three of these criteria go hand in hand. Breeders that carry out scanning will increase the accuracy% of their flocks €uroStar genetic evaluations and will also contribute their flock DQI score.

Continued Development of Sheep Ireland website

We are continuing to add new features to the website for the benefit of data recording flock owners. In the coming weeks we will be increasing our efforts to make all our website users aware of some of these new features. The ‘Ram Report’ is one such feature which breeders should find very useful. This report was referenced in a very good piece in this week’s Irish Farming Independent which looked at the farm of Clifford Richardson, Lleyn breeder from Co. Cavan. To view the article click here.