100 Charollais Ram Lambs go through CT Scanner - May 2010

A grand total of 100 Charollais ram lambs from 12 different flocks have been analysed using a CT scanner.  The majority of lambs were scanned at Nottingham University using the facility of a mobile CT scanner.  This scanner travels the country being used mainly for cats and dogs for diagnostic scanning.  The process was developed at SAC in Edinburgh and a number of Charollais also went through their static scanner. 

Pictures left to right - the mobile CT scanner parked up in a barn at Nottingham University.  Animals are first weighed then given a mild sedative before being strapped into a cradle.  The cradle is lifted via a hydraulic ramp into the CT trailer. 

The cradle is then placed on a table ready to move through the CT scanner.  Images are taken of the ram lambs at three positions through the whole body and calculations made to record the total lean tissue, total bone, total fat and killing out %.  An additional measurement is taken across the gigot of each lamb to give a result for muscularity.  All these results are fed into Signets total breed analysis to enhance not just the accuracy for the individual animals scanned, but for all the linked Charollais. 

Ram lambs take around 20 / 30 mins to completely recover from the sedative and are then ready to transport back to their farms.  

The story of the lambs going through the scanner made national TV news. 

Breeder Development Day : Getting the Best out of Breed Improvement

Wednesday 31st March 2010 on farm at Fferm Bryngwyn,  Whitland, Carms by kind invitation of Arwyn and Jane Thomas.

At the end of March, a great crowd of breeders and commercial farmers converged on Arwyn and Jane Thomas’s farm in Carmarthenshire to view their Arjane Flock. The stock was looking outstanding. Visitors viewed the shorn weaned ewes, shearling ewes, some later lambed ewes and a great selection of lambs. The ram lambs were split into sire groups featuring progeny of Edstaston Juno, Galtres Dominator, Penrhos Ibanez and Rockvilla Golden Promise. The lambs were showing great growth rates, fleshing and good coats throughout. A pen of later born lambs caught the attention of many breeders being sired by Cargrief Golden Eye.

Signet Recording

After the farm visit the 60 visitors heard presentations at the local Rugby Club on the subject of performance recording. Sam Boon from Signet explained how well the Charollais breed has progressed over the past 25 years and also the impressive improvement of the Arjane flock. Scan weight and muscle has consistently risen while fat levels remained constant.

HCC Funding

The event was supported by HCC who are offering considerable financial incentives to flocks to join the recording scheme. If you would like to know more about the system and how you can get financial help (if your flock is in Wales) then please contact the office.

Society Strategy

At the meeting Carroll Barber outlined the policy of the Charollais Society on performance recording as recently agreed in the Society’s Strategy Plan. The Society has a clear policy to encourage the use of genetic evaluation to allow Charollais to become the leading terminal sire breed. We feel that it is crucial for the success of the breed to record performance information; without logging what is happening to a breed, with figures, you cannot rank progression or change direction. But a highly important aspect of our strategy plan is to :- “Ensure our genetic evaluation programme is best suited to our breed and market conditions.”

Carroll highlighted the critical comments that have been made about high performance animals in the past and how this has been tackled and what is happening now to address any shortcomings the system may have.

CT Scanning

We are encouraging the use of CT scanning to maximise accurate information on our breed and also be able to measure muscularity. CT scanning allows us to record gigot shape and give animals an EBV for muscularity. It is the most accurate method of assessing muscle, bone and fat. This year the Society will support financially those flocks that CT scan their lambs to make sure this facility continues. HCC, Eblex and QMS contribute significant funds to help this activity.

Leanness

We have tackled the issue of some high index animals being too lean and a number of years back introduced a method to ‘knock back’ animals which had very high growth linked with extreme leanness. This year we are reviewing the weightings between fat, growth and muscle to see if any changes should be implemented for next year. The more sophisticated computer programmes run by Egenes at SAC will allow us to look at a number of different scenarios for the weightings to see what effect they have on the recorded population. We will analyse these and assess if a change is required.

Scale of Charollais

On the question of whether Charollais are too big; we are asking recording members to weigh their shearling ewes prior to mating and we will monitor if the breed is getting bigger, staying the same and then we can take some action if necessary.

Grass Fed Production

Many flocks are now shifting to a later lambing, more extensively reared shearling ram production system. We need to know if the current system works for these animals. We are pushing for a research project to look into the effects of different rearing systems.

Show Classes

The Society understands the importance of the existing structure within the livestock industry. The show world has been and continues to be a very important place for the Charollais breed. For this reason we will make every effort to keep these two aspects of breeding sheep running together. That is why we run workshops for our judges and also work with schemes to highlight the achievements of high performance sheep in the show ring. We will be developing more commercially orientated show classes and find methods to focus on high performance, recorded stock. Just a reminder of just how well high performance sheep do look; Rockvilla Golden Promise was purchased from an unrecorded flock. He was initially used in a couple of recorded flocks and then a few others. The performance of his progeny have given him a stock sire ranking in the top 5%. He was also Interbreed Champion at the Royal Welsh Show in 2008 – illustrating just how top performance and show quality can go hand in hand.