Wednesday, 22 November 2023 13:55

Sheepish

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: This old mutt understands that a number of high profile sheep studs are unhappy with Beef+ Lamb Genetics’ recent push to include methane traits in sheep.

Apparently, several of these studs have written to B+L Genetics asking where it got the mandate for using levy resources – and potentially compromising the world leading SIL database owned by stud breeders – to make this move.

Sources tell yours truly that one ag scientist recently mentioned “off record” that while they felt uneasy chasing a non-productive trait, it was the first time in their career that research money was “falling into their laps and laboratories”.

Ironically, B+L Genetics must have gotten wind of the breeders’ annoyance and suddenly and swiftly sent out a survey to sheep farmers asking what they thought about methane trait selection – albeit it a few years too late.

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