Changes to €uro-Star evaluations set to come in to place in 2026 will add an additional €35m in profit to the sheep industry over the next 10 years.

The predictions were delivered by Sheep Ireland and Teagasc at a sheep industry meeting held last week in Tullamore.

In the region of €15m of the additional profit is set to come from changes to the terminal index with €20m stemming from changes to the replacement index.

The new genetic evaluations will now be based off updated costs and values introduced to the bio-economic model used to calculate values. Sheep Ireland stated that the “updates mean that breeding decisions made using €uro-Stars are aligned with current economics helping to maximise profitability through more informed selection decisions”.

Two new traits have also been incorporated to genetic evaluations – namely faecal egg count and methane production, with farmers now able to include these metrics in their breeding criteria.