Experiments With Hybrid Sheep

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30793, 3 July 1965, Page 6

Experiments With Hybrid Sheep

(Special Corresponded* N.Z.P.A.J ‘ LONDON, July 1. With the profit from the average commercial fat-lamb producing flock m Britain running at £2 a ewe, the only scope for real improvement lay in increasing lamb output. Dr. J. Broadbent, a research manager, said hi Yorkshire recently.

He gave early results from tests on the Colbred, the new hybrid sheep which his organisation is marketing, as the sire of the. fat lamb mother. The organisation expected the Colbred would become established in this role, with Colbred ewes producing more lambs and having sufficient milk for them, he said.

A big testing programme, designed to evaluate the Colbred as a sire, had been continuing for two years. Colbred, Border Leicester and Teeswater rams were run side by side by farmers under contract to produce lambs. Crosses were made with

blackface, north and south country Cheviot, Swaledale, rough fell, Welsh and ClHn ewes. The resultant crosses were then grouped into test flocks. Colbred crosses showed marked superiority over Border Leicester and Teeswater crosses, said Dr. Broad bent. It seemed that an extra 15 to 30 per cent, of the ewes would lamb during their first year. Production, as measured by lambing percentage, would vary from an extra 10 per cent, to 35 per cent, according to cross.