Sheep Ireland is expecting a 75% increase in demand for Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS) eligible hill rams in 2024.
This was detailed at the Teagasc national hill sheep conference that took place last night (Thursday, February 15) in Glendalough, Co. Wicklow.
David Coen of Sheep Ireland provided updates to the hill sheep farmers who attended last night’s event on the work being undertaken to genotype rams, and the benefits of doing so.
In 2024, there will be a 75% increase in demand from 2023 for genotyped hill rams, with a further 14% increase expected in 2025, Coen explained.
Great progress has been made by Sheep Ireland, as Coen emphasised that prior to 2023, only 240 hill rams were genotyped.
Since then, Sheep Ireland has been working with 17 hill groups in genotyping rams for the SIS, and there are now 4,920 hill rams genotyped nationally across ten sheep breeds.
Several genotyping days will take place in the following weeks, organized by the groups and supported by Sheep Ireland.
Before the conference in Glendalough, Coen said he and a colleague were in nearby Blessington Mart for the first DNA collection day of the year for hill rams, where almost 200 rams had their DNA sample taken.
These rams will be available later in the year for farmers to purchase to meet the requirements of the SIS.
What SIS rams can do for farmers:
- Assured parentage through DNA verification;
- Decrease your chances of inbreeding;
- Secure a healthy scrapie status in your herd;
- Rams’ DNA is stored on a national database and can lead to genetic linkage with research and future hill development.
Every farmer must purchase and use a Sheep Ireland genomically tested sire in the first three years of the SIS.
Flocks with over 150 ewes must complete a second time by year five of the SIS.
For hill flocks, the ram must be DNA sire verified by Sheep Ireland. This only applies to Blackface Mountain and Cheviot type rams. Hill flocks can also purchase rams that meet the lowland criteria.
Of the 1,899 hill rams that were genotyped in 2023, 611 were not SIS eligible as they did not have a genotyped sire, and 150 failed due to being scrapie four or five.
Hill ram inbreeding
Coen explained at the conference that the “inbreeding coefficient is increasing”, meaning that the increased data from gathering hill ram DNA samples has shown higher levels of inbreeding in hill flocks.
“We can tell from the animals DNA how inbred that particular animal is, based solely off its DNA without knowing the parent,” Coen said.
Hill rams year of birth Percentage inbreeding Older rams 1.88% 2019 1.96% 2020 2.29% 2021 2.46% 2022 2.66% 2023 to-date 2.49%
Coen said: “Just over the last four or five years, [percentage inbreeding] is slowly starting to creep up, this is across all breeds and across the 5,000 genotyped rams in the country.”
When broken down by breeds (in the table below), it is clear that the more populous sheep breeds in the country have a lower inbreeding percentage than the breeds with fewer numbers.
Ram breeds Percentage inbreeding Perth 2.67% Cheviot 3.84% Mayo/Connemara 1.17% Lanark 5.41% Swaledale 3.29% Dingle 1.17%
Coen detailed the experiences of one west Waterford farmer, who bought a ram lamb in 2021, and in the following year bought another ram from a different area.
Towards the end of 2022, this farmer bought another ram, but when these three rams were genotyped by Sheep Ireland in 2023, it was discovered that all three rams were sired by the same ram.
“It was only through genotyping with us did he get that information,” Coen said.