New announcement – RamCompare nominations are now open and we encourage you to consider putting your rams forward as new natural service rams or sell frozen semen for use in artificial insemination programmes for the 2024 mating season.
RamCompare, the national progeny test, supports terminal sire pedigree breeders that performance record their flocks within Signet providing evidence of how sires with high EBVs perform on commercial farms and has enabled the development of more accurate predictors for carcase value.
Complimenting the long-standing breeding values for Scan Weight, Muscle Depth and Fat Depth, we have a series of new breeding values which include Days to Slaughter, Carcase Weight, Conformation and Fat Class. Since the combined breed evaluation update last spring, these abattoir derived traits are published for all performance recorded rams.
This analysis provides sound marketing information for pedigree breeders demonstrating an accurate and unbiased way to compare the genetic potential of different animals. Individual breeding traits can be used as evidence to reassure commercial ram buyers and clearly confirms the progress being achieved within the breed.
Due to the keen involvement of pedigree breeders supporting the RamCompare project we have tested over 468 terminal sires and collected data from birth to slaughter from over 44,000 of their progeny.
Ram or AI sire selection criteria:
EBVs in top 20% for the National Terminal Sire Evaluation, though lower ranking rams may be considered if they are of particular interest
- A history of performance records taken on the ram and his contemporaries/progeny, including measurements taken using the CT scanner
- Genetic linkage to other flocks in the breed
- Different breeding lines to those rams already tested
- For natural service sires we require the rams to be shearlings or older, we prefer not to purchase ram lambs. Nominations of fit and fertile, older stock rams are extremely welcome.
- Known health status
Please continue to support our national progeny test through nominating your rams to RamCompare for use this season!
- Follow links below to access online ram/semen nomination forms:
- Ram nominations https://forms.office.com/e/U9f2aMUR3M
- Semen nominations https://forms.office.com/e/vNjZrQVT1i
Farm recruitment – RamCompare collects data from birth to slaughter from commercial UK farms and are on the look-out for new farms to recruit who have 300+ ewes, use EID for flock data collection, run all commercial lambs as one management group and have a fast-finishing system. If you are interested in participating and would like further information please contact me directly.
For more information visit www.signetdata.com
Deadline for new nominations is Friday 17th May 2024
