The UK’s national progeny testing initiative is seeking new commercial farms to join the project this season across England and Wales.
RamCompare aims to gather valuable performance data from commercial lambs to drive improvements in the UK sheep sector.
Host farms provide around 300 commercial ewes of a uniform breed type which are mated to terminal sire rams provided by the project using single-sire, natural-service mating groups or artificial insemination.
Jointly funded by levy organisations AHDB and Hybu Cig Cymru (HCC), the project, first launched in 2015, is now seeking new farms to join.
Bridget Lloyd, RamCompare project coordinator, said it was a great opportunity for host farms to benefit from using top genetics within their flock.
"They have the chance to use rams with high health and genetic merit within their flock," she explained.
"They will get support to benchmark their flock performance against other project farms and the opportunity to engage with a small group of innovative likeminded farmers.
“Insights gained have contributed to the development of Signet’s national terminal sire evaluation, helping commercial farmers select superior, performance-recorded rams whose progeny can produce higher-value carcasses and reduce production costs.”
All rams selected for use must rank within the top 20% of performance-recorded terminal sires.
Throughout the process, farms will collect detailed data using electronic identification (EID) from birth to slaughter.
This ensures lambs are reared as a single management group within a fast-finishing system.
What are the requirements?
To be considered as a host farm, the following requirements need to be met:
• Provide 300 commercial ewes
• Use high-index, performance-recorded terminal sire rams supplied by the project
• Ewes must be single-sire mated
• Data must be collected on lambs using EID from birth to slaughter
• Lambs will be raised as one management group within a fast-finishing system
Nominations for farm recruitment can be sent to bridget@bridget-lloyd.com by 16 May 2025.
