Commercial lamb producers place confidence in figures

Amongst the many commercial lamb producers who attended the first Ulster Bank/NSA recorded ram sale in September were Harold Truesdale and his son Niall and brothers Henry and Martin Rice (all from near Castlewellan, County Down.

This new NSA venture was supported by the “Profit from Performance” programme, developed for the sheep sector by Beef and Sheep Development Branch staff at CAFRE. The sale provided a different and fresh approach to purchasing rams with the aim of providing the commercial lamb producer with a choice of physically sound, high genetic merit rams. To achieve this, rams catalogued for the sale were fully performance recorded, including 8 and 20 week weights and ultrasonically scanned, had a minimum of one EBV in the top 25 percent of the breed and were above breed average for Index. In addition all the rams were inspected by a local vet for physical soundness.

Harold and Niall Truesdale purchased a Texel ram with an index in the top 25 percent of the breed and growth traits in the top 10 percent percent. They were encouraged by assistance from Foyle Meats received through the Strangford Down Lamb Group. They had selected two rams with similar figures and managed to purchase the one they considered had the better conformation.

10 years old Niall wants to expand his pedigree breeding interests and decided to purchase a ram with figures and ‘looks’. In the past they had purchased rams, which according to Harold had been fed up to look good but failed to produce quality lambs. He feels they will have a better chance with a recorded ram – the figures should rule out the influence of feeding prior to the sale.

Henry and Martin Rice purchased the two highest indexed Suffolk rams at the sale. They are continually striving to improve the quality of the beef and lamb produced from their own farm resources. Encouraged by their positive experiences from purchasing a performance recorded Charolais bull through the Beef Quality Initiative, they have now purchased a second performance recorded bull and these two performance-recorded Suffolk rams.

They were keen to purchase rams to produce quick growing lambs with good conformation, so were particularly interested in 20-week weights and carcase traits.

All involved are looking forward to next spring when they will closely monitor the performance of the progeny from these specially selected recorded rams.

Harold and Niall Truesdale with their performance recorded Texel ram lamb bred by Henry Gamble, Groomsport and purchased at the Ulster Bank/NSA recorded ram sale.

Martin Rice examines one of the two performance recorded Suffolk ram lambs purchased at the Ulster Bank/NSA recorded ram sale. This ram was bred by Alan Rea, Aughnacloy.