Hampshire breeders improve genetic potential

Hampshire breeders have made great strides in improving the genetic potential of rams offered for sale to commercial flocks by rigorous testing of tups, progeny and listening to what end users want.

That’s the message from performance recording specialist Signet, which suggests scan weights of lambs sired by an average recorded Hampshire ram have risen by 2kg in the past six years alone. The most elite rams – usually the top 10% by breed – achieve scan weights of 2kg higher than the average.

The Yarcombe flock, owned by the Derryman family, Honiton, have embraced recording of ram performance, often backed up with on-farm carcass assessment and more involved off-farm CT scanning to produce rams for sale to commercial customers.

According to Philip Derryman – who farms with his parents, uncle and grandparents – customers seeking rams from the 110-ewe flock want consistency in the following lamb crop.

“We still select rams by eye and use performance figures to back up decisions. The results from progeny testing allows us to establish the accuracy of these figures and that’s often what clinches it for commercial buyers picking from a handful of rams.”

Progeny have birth weight, eight-week and 21-week weights recorded. Scanning to assess eye muscle size, tissue depth and fat cover provides the basis of carcass trait information. This, ultimately, determines income for commercial flock owners.

“There are buyers out there looking just for high index rams. We still prefer to pick ram lambs that we like the look of and use the performance records of the sire to confirm that choice,” he explains.

Communication with commercial buyers remains paramount. Their selection process is almost identical with performance figures, often presented in the form of Signet’s Estimated Breeding Values helping in the final decision when picking from a group of shearling rams offered for sale.

Performance recording is a subject Mr Derryman has studied in depth. During his time at Reading University he studied the difference in progeny performance between a high-index Hampshire sire imported from New Zealand and that of a low-index UK sire. The results spoke for themselves;

“Lamb growth rate was 327g/day for the high-index sire versus 282g, and days to finishing were 120.5 days versus 139,” he explains.

The use of performance recording has allowed the Yarcombe flock to improve its genetic improvement score of 111 in 1990 to 209 in 2010, according to official figures.

But in practical terms what does this mean for commercial flock owners?

Yarcombe lambs’ breeding potential for growth rate is 1.77kg higher than that of the average lamb on the breed’s Signet Sire Reference Scheme allowing a week to be cut from finishing times.

But performance figures do not dominate. To introduce new bloodlines to the flock the Derrymans have to select potential terminal sires from other breeders often on physical characteristics and await progeny to bear out their choice.

“The testing system is something breeders will have to embrace in the future,” says Mr Derryman. But he is adamant commercial producers need to see the economic merit of having figures – including accuracy results – factored in to decisions over ram purchases.

With 80% of rams sold off-farm the contact with end users is important. Seeing shearling rams in the working environment and outside the show arena often gives confidence to the decision maker, he suggests.

“The future for the sheep industry is low-input, grass-based systems to which the Hampshire is suited. The animal itself will have to perform on its own with minimal human intervention and that will, I think, increase the use of performance recorded figures to be used by the buyers of rams,” says Mr Derryman.

CASE STUDY

Stroud, Hampshire

When income is driven by kilos of lamb carcass sold within abattoir scheme spec, commercial flock owner Andrew Snow has no doubt picking high-index rams with performance figures for higher scan weight, and growth rate plus a negative score for back-fat pays dividends.

Mr Snow – who farms 100ha (250ac) with wife Angharad and parents Chris and Angela at Stroud, Hampshire – runs a mix of 600 Suffolk x Mule and Mule ewes and 200 ewe-lambs. He aims to increase flock size to 1000 breeding ewes by 2015 by using a forage-based system to keep feed costs down.

“Our target is to achieve an average lamb carcass weight of 20kg and we’re getting close to that,” he says.

Over the past few years selecting Hampshire rams from the top 10% of the breed with good scan weights, growth rates and a negative EBV for back fat has seen average carcass weight increase from 19.1kg in 2008 to 19.6kg last year at carcass grade R3L or better. Last season the family sold 170% lamb/ewe tupped.

“I’m in no rush to sell lambs as it’s the carcass weight we’re paid on within (abattoir) spec. But I do need lambs to have the potential to grow quickly once ewes have lambed in May which is why I pay attention to breeding records highlighting scan weight,” he explained.

With a ram in the Hampshire’s top 10% having the potential to deliver lambs 2kg heavier at scanning over the breed average, this is worth an extra 0.75kg lean carcass tissue or £4-5 a lamb in revenue, according to Signet.

Although Mr Snow suggests he’s not in a position currently to calculate the return in lamb sales from selecting and buying top performance recorded Hampshire rams, his gut feeling is that a premium is worth paying.

“We have rams from both Henry Derryman’s Yarcombe flock and Chris Westlake’s Owslebury flock and look to buy in two recorded rams each year.”

“We sell some progeny through the South Downs Lamb Scheme, which supplies retail butchers across the south and in London. The scheme pays an 11p premium over the industry average. As with most contracts there are large penalties when lambs going out of spec. We have been able to avoid penalties by selecting rams with – among other scores – a negative score for back-fat.

“A Hampshire used on the Suffolk Mule x ewes produces a viable lamb that gets sucking quickly and can achieve a good growth rate. When we draw the first lambs off grass in late September at 45kg live weight around 95% of these can usually be guaranteed to have been sired by a Hampshire rather than breeds used on the mules.”

Investment in rams is being monitored. The aim is for a ratio of 50:1 and for rams to have a five-year working life, explains Mr Snow. “It’s only really within the past few years I have selected and bought high-index rams, but I can already see the results in lamb performance and sales.”