The OviFlock European Innovation Partnership (EIP) plans to establish hill sheep flockbooks (ancestry databases) within the Irish hill sheep industry. It will establish these flockbooks using the new and innovative digital solutions developed by an experienced operational group. There are currently 17 different hill sheep ram breeding groups in Ireland. The groups operate independently of each other and promote the use of six distinct hill sheep breeds e.g. Cheviot, Dingle Scotch Blackface Lanark Blackface, Mayo-Connemara Blackface, Perth Blackface and Swaledale. The groups do not record ancestry information for their respective hill sheep breeds, which is leading to a number of challenges for the sector, such as inbreeding, breed dilution, inability to make structured genetic improvement to name a few. OviFlock is engaging with all 17 groups at present to help change this situation and implement structures that will lay solid foundations for the future of hill sheep breeding in Ireland.
The benefits of such foundations have the potential to be transformative and wide reaching for all stakeholders involved in the Irish hill sheep sector. By establishing flockbooks, OviFlock will open the door for a genetic improvement programme for Irish hill sheep for the first time. In terms of reducing input costs and increasing efficiency, genetic improvement is the most powerful approach that Ireland can employ to achieve this. Establishing flockbooks and tracking animal ancestry information is the precursor to any genetic improvement programme hence the importance of this EIP. The development and adoption of digital technology tools will also need to be at the centre of this EIP for it to succeed.
Oviflock EIP activities to date
- Establish six distinct flockbook databases representing the hill sheep breeds currently in use in Ireland.
- Collection of DNA (ear biopsy) from all purebred female hill sheep in participating flocks. It is hoped that over 400 purebred hill breeding flocks will eventually partake in this EIP.
- Development of smartphone app features to facilitate flockbook data capture and a suite of farmer friendly reports and functionality to carry out routine flockbook activities
- Genotyping of chosen high priority hill sheep dams (those who have sired breeding rams for future sale), providing complete parentage information for Irish hill rams for the first time.
- Collection of useful phenotypes (such as mouth quality, lameness data etc) during DNA sampling flock visits which will provide the foundation for a suite of digital reports and future phenotype capture by participating breeders.
- Integration of hill sheep breeding information onto the sales ring digital displays of Irish sheep marts.
The OviFlock EIP is currently seeking purebred hill ram breeders to sign-up to the project and avail of free female genotyping available through the EIP. Hill ram breeders need to be current members of an established hill ram breeding group/association. Hill flocks that have already engaged in sire genotyping to date are of particular interest. These flocks will now be in a position to produce full parentage verification via genotyping for all breeding rams presented for sale in the future. The presence of visible and accurate parentage information for purebred hill breeding rams sold annually are numerous but include;
- Empowering ram buyers with vital information to avoid inbreeding.
- Facilitating more targeted breeding programmes among purebred ram breeders, again eliminating inbreeding.
- Reducing the dilution of Ireland’s purebred hill sheep population due to crossing between different hill breeds/genetics.
- Facilitating progress on scrapie resistance within Irish hill sheep.
- Opening the potential for performance recording and generation of EBVs (€uroStars) for Irish hill sheep.
Any breeder wishing to join the OviFlock project can register their interest via the Sheep Ireland website (link to OviFlock located on the homepage). Any queries on the project can also be directed to query@sheep.ie or 023 882 045.
To learn more about the EIP-Agri programme in Ireland, click here.
