Sheep Ireland has launched a new ram and breeder search facility ahead of the busy autumn sales period. The timing of its release is particularly helpful for farmers who are apprehensive about attending sales in the current environment or those looking to purchase direct from the farm. It offers an opportunity to check the genetic credentials of rams currently available in the market online. At present, there are in excess of 10,000 rams listed as available for purchase.

The service can be accessed at https://appsh.sheep.ie/ram-search. The platform is desktop-based but Eamon Wall explains it is also optimised for viewing on mobile phones and a link can be easily pinned to your home screen to facilitate quick access.

The landing page offers users the option of carrying out a standard search on breed, ram type and the desired star rating (scroll from left and right to select the star rating). There are nine breeds present in the first drop down menu including Belclare, Beltex, Blue Texel, Charollais, Galway, Lleyn, Rouge de l’Ouest, Suffolk, Texel and Vendéen. While the other breed category expands into Blue de Maine, Bluefaced Leicester, Border Leicester, Cheviot, Dorset Horn and Polled Dorset, Easy Care, Hampshire Down, Île-de-France, Lanark, Mayo Connemara, Shropshire, Swaledale and Zwartbles.

The search can be expanded by selecting the option of more filters. This then allows selection on traits includi--ng the number of lambs born, daughter’s milk, lambing survivability and days to slaughter. It is also possible to search in this window for rams that have been genotyped or bred by CPT sires.

Eamon explains that the latter search criteria is generally used where a farmer is looking for rams with a higher accuracy or looking to improve the linkage of their flock. It is worth noting that when the search criteria is selected you need to scroll down the page to see the results.

County search

There is also a map located on the landing page and this can be used to narrow down your search by county. Individual counties or multiple counties can be selected together. The manner in which the search results are displayed also allows sorting by aspects such as the owner, replacement index, terminal index, etc, and this can be accessed by clicking on the subject title which is highlighted in bold.

Selecting a flock will bring you through to a window which details the flock’s performance, contact details and a data quality index which is a measure of how much data the flock records (scored out of 100).

Farmers also have the option of searching by breeder via the breeder tab at the top of the page. There are in the region of 540 breeders participating in LambPlus and when breeders with multiple breeds are taken into account there are in excess of 700 breed profiles available.

The final tab available at the top of the page is named flockbook animals. This tab allows the genetic evaluation of every animal recorded through LambPlus to be viewed. It can be used to see how the genetic evaluation of animals may have changed over time.

Directory and elite sale

Eamon also reports that Sheep Ireland is currently publishing its annual LambPlus directory. This will be circulated to 12,000 farmers who have registered an interest via the sheep census in receiving correspondence from Sheep Ireland. Breeders not on this list and who want to receive a directory can contact Sheep Ireland by phone on 023 882 0451 or by emailing query@sheep.ie. A soft copy of the directory will also be available online.

Finally, the Sheep Ireland elite sale of performance recorded rams takes place on Saturday 22 August in Tullamore Mart.

Eamon reports that the sale entry is expected to be in the region of 350 to 400 rams across the largest eight to nine breed societies.

Entries are currently being collated and the catalogue will be available for viewing online in the week preceding the sale.