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Rams with high Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) for terminal traits can deliver an extra £900 from lamb sales, according to the latest results from the RamCompare project.
Results from the fourth year of the project show that lambs sired by rams with a high Carcase Merit Index typically made £3.50/head more than lower genetic merit lambs.
Extra money can be made purely by investing in rams with the right genetics
Sam Boon from AHDB said that for a ram with a three-year working life, tupping 60 ewes each year and selling 1.4 lambs per ewe, this equates to an extra £900.
“There are some clear financial differences there. Extra money can be made purely by investing in rams with the right genetics,” he said.
Boon suggested that the financial gain on most commercial sheep farms in the UK would be even greater. This is because RamCompare participants already use high EBV sires, so the variation in performance within their flocks would be smaller.
Rather than getting het up on breed, we should be focusing on finding out the highest-ranking animals
RamCompare is a progeny testing programme that is being undertaken on nine farms across the UK. Terminal traits in 19,000 lambs sired by 211 different sires have been assessed in the first four years of the project.
According to Boon, one of the key findings is that there is as much variation in performance within individual breeds as there is across different breeds.
“Rather than getting het up on breed, we should be focusing on finding out the highest-ranking animals and selecting accordingly,” he said.
Rams from seven different breeds ranked first place at least once across the various traits that are under investigation in the project.
For the Carcase Merit Index, a composite EBV based on several terminal traits, the Texel ram Grey Peel Lear Jet (HMF05019), bred by Maurice Hardy-Bishop from Cumbria topped the rankings.
A Meatlinc ram (HRF:09012) topped the Scan Weight EBV, which indicates speed of growth. A Charollais ram (11AB00035) ranked first place in the Shearforce EBV for meat tenderness.
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