Texel pioneers data research

Although some traditional sheep breeders remain sceptical of the benefits of using performance data, the Texel Breed Society has this week announced its involvement in a ground-breaking piece of research using the DNA from a large number of rams.

The unique research is being pioneered in Great Britain and New Zealand and British Texel breeders should be among the first sheep breeders in the world to be able to take advantage of genomic selection tools when they become available.

The research involves taking DNA samples from 300 progeny sires in Britain and a further 10,000 animals in New Zealand. Some of these are pure Texels and a large number of the rest have some Texel genetics, according to British Texel Sheep Society chief executive John Yates.

“Genomics will allow a DNA sample to be used to directly estimate breeding values for certain traits,” he said. “To formulate and refine the prediction equations requires large numbers of well-recorded animals, ideally progeny tested sires, which is something the Texel breed has in both the UK and New Zealand and indeed in many other parts of the world.”

The link between the two countries is based on the fact that they have both seen similar traits in their performance recording programmes. The challenge, according to Yates, will be to obtain sufficient Texel animals with highly accurate breeding values so the prediction equations already developed in New Zealand on several closely related breeds and crosses derived from the UK can be extrapolated into the Texel breed.

He believed the data from this country was robust in itself, with the Texel breed now accounting for the single largest number of recorded sheep in the country. Last year recorded flocks accounted for more than 15,000 birth notifications to the British Texel Sheep Society.

“This year has seen a 27 per cent increase in the number of recorded Texel flocks and tellingly, the breed champion at the Scottish National Sale was the first prize winner from the performance recorded class, proving that type and performance are being delivered by the current recording system,” he said.

In another piece of research, the Texel breed will be the reference point for all global genome sequencing in sheep. The research is based on two separate sheep, one pure Texel male from the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh and a Texel from China.