Why SIG?

Sheep Improved Genetics Ltd. Why?

Back in the early 2000’s David Disney discussed the need for a “better” ewe with many of the terminal ram customers supplied by the old Sheep Improvement Group. All agreed that there was room for improvement on what was on general offer.

With assistance from the Genesis Faraday Partnership (now Bio-Science KTN) a “Road-mapping” day was held in early 2006. Twenty commercially minded sheep farmers spent a full day threshing out a common objective for a “better ewe”. Sounds simple, but to drive down to the bare essentials and then come forward with a programme that independent farmers would lock into took time. The unanimous opinion was to remove the need to shear sheep and then reduce the costs associated with health issues.

An efficient, low maintenance, low cost and easy-managed animal was seen to be the answer for a profitable industry. Very similar in concept to the easy care proposals of John Vipond of the Scottish Agricultural Colleges (SAC). Six months later and the group consolidated to 10 members with a base breeding programme. Again the Genesis Faraday Partnership helped by funding genetic advisor, Joanne Conington of the SAC, to assist with the structure of the breeding program.

Genetic material, semen and embryos, were imported from Canada and South Africa from Katahdin and Dorper wool shedding sheep considered valuable to the project. Barbados Black Belly have also been included. This was used on a small proportion of the 3500 ewes put into the scheme in 2006. British wool shedding rams, predominantly Wiltshire Horn, Easicare, were used on the remainder of the SIG flock. Members identified & dedicated animals to the “SIG flock” although still on the individual member’s holdings and these initial ewes are known as the nucleus animals. From this nucleus were selected Elite animals on which intense selection is applied.

The initial nucleus flock were a mixed bunch including Lleyn, Mules and mule variants sired by the Blue Faced Leicester and even some Berrichon, Texel and Suffolk half breeds, even. All were tagged with electronic tags and put into an electronic data capture programme supported by Shearwell Data Ltd. Shearwell developed a programme to assist in recording details that identified traits such as ease of lambing (amount of assistance, if any, the ewe needed), milk availability at parturition, mothering (protection afforded both lambs), birth weight, lamb vigour (get up & go) and other traits seen as essential for the ewe capable of free lambing in the field, the ultimate objective. Growth weights of the lambs are recorded at eight weeks of age in all flocks, and twenty-week weights are also gathered.

This would be an almost impossible task in the large-scale lambing situations on the member’s farms without a robust, easy to use recording package. Rams have been moved strategically around the member’s farms to provide the “linkage” necessary to provide Sire Reference and the resulting data is forwarded for BLUP processing. SIG believe performance recording to be the best and only method of finding the superior rams to provide the improved genetics for future breeding.

SIG has built strong relationships with Research Institutes, including the Roslin, SAC and BBSRC. The BBSRC amongst its many roles are responsible for grass seed breeding via Rothamsted Research which in turn manages the North Wyke experimental farm near Okehampton.

Janet Roden of Aberystwyth University conducted a Spark Awarded study into “Optimal scoring report”. The conclusion is to use an intuitive scoring system, one that has a high score for the quality of trait we are looking for. This has been incorporated into all of the recoding programmes for SIG. It has not been accepted by some other breeding programmes as it certainly seems to have merit. But not all recording scheme accept this simple principle. To have a standard system in the UK seems sensible.

Dr Geoff Pollott of the Royal Veterinary College has also conducted a study of animals in the SIG flock and has concluded that a single gene appears responsible for shedding. SIG is well positioned to utilise chromosome profiling, the study of DNA SNP genotyping which is already delivering so much in other species.

Chris Warkup, a director of Bio-Science KTN along with Dr Helen Ferrier, NFU Chief Science Adviser have seen first-hand the work in progress with the Exlana breed.

Mark Young of Sheep Improvement Limited (SIL), New Zealand has provided genetic advice to the group. Duncan Pullar of EBLEX (English Beef & Lamb Executive) has been particularly supportive of the project as has Chris Lloyd of the Better Returns Programme. Peter Morris, Chief Executive of the NSA regards the SIG concept as ground breaking.

SIG members have visited Düsseldorf University to meet Professor Rolf Minhorst who has been involved with crossing many breeds, including their native Mouflon hair sheep, in the pursuit of achieving a wool shedding breeding sheep. German farmers have no equivalent of the British Wool Marketing Board and often find themselves having to dump the wool they shear, due to it having no value.

Should we pursue disease resistance or resilience? The jury is out on this.

Two members of the group have been actively selecting animals for their reduced Faecal Egg Counts (FEC). With the cost of anthelmintic being as they are and the time involved in drenching lambs any reduction in worm burden must be positive for the sheep farmer. Similarly footrot is a cost to the industry. Warwick College has conducted a number of studies into this serious welfare condition. Carriers are the scourge, and foot bathing and trimming does little to resolve the problem which can cost the average flock £5 per ewe when an attack is experienced. Trials with-in SIG are proving that some animals either have resistance or resilience to footrot.

Can we find an answer?

If we do not try then we most definitely will not!