| 2015-02-20 |    |
Charollais Index Updated to Reduce Days to Slaughter
Signet Breeding Services has produced a new breeding index to improve the growth rates and the speed of finishing Charollais-sired lambs.
The new index retains the changes made ten years ago to penalise sheep with very low fat depth EBVs. It will now also reduce the emphasis currently applied to sheep with genetically lower levels of fat within the overall carcase.
Charollais Ram
photo: Charollais Sheep
Society
The use of Estimated Breeding Values and Breeding Indexes are a proven way to enhance commercial sheep production. These changes will lead to the production of well-muscled, faster-growing, but slightly fatter Charollais sheep.
The improvements are expected to further increase the commercial value of Charollais-sired lambs by performance-recorded rams. Trials have shown the financial benefit of choosing the right recorded ram can exceed £1000 over its working lifetime.
Breeders engaged in this technology have made huge genetic gains in commercially-important traits since the launch of the Charollais Sire Reference Scheme 25 years ago.
Jonathan Barber, Charollais Sires chairman, said: “The Charollais breed is a pioneer of progressive breeding. The use of performance records, ultrasound scanning and computed tomography has done a tremendous job identifying elite terminal sires. These changes are a natural progression, which ensures high-index Charollais sires meet the needs of the industry.”
Samuel
Boon, EBLEX Breeding Specialist, said:
“The original
index has done a great job for the Charollais breed. These changes
will provide lambs with slightly higher levels of finish on lower
input systems – with slightly faster growth rates. Ultimately
these changes are a win-win for the breed.
“However, at a national level nearly 27 per cent of lambs are still fatter (3H or more) than market requirements, so producers are urged to select lambs for slaughter carefully and use the right genetics to optimise market returns.”
