Exotic import date set

Press, 13 July 1984, Page 27

Exotic import date set

Embryos from three exotic breeds of sheep are expected to arrive in New Zealand in November, enabling the first births to occur in the spring of 1985. New Zealand intends to import 450 to 500 embryos as well as semen from Finnish Landrace, Texel and Oxford Down sheep from Denmark, Finland and Sweden. The embryOs will be implanted in about 120 sheep on Somes Eland in Wellington Harbour. After their birth, the purebred lambs will remain in quarantine on Somes Eland for six months and will then be transferred to secondary quarantine at a M.A.F. research farm near Hamilton. The secondary quarantine will apply for four years and during the final two years the flocks will be multiplied to enable as many sheep as possible to be available for release, purchase and use in the commercial sheep industry.

Dr John Hutton, director of the Agricultural Research Division of the M.A.F., said no final details had been arranged for the distribution of the exotic sheep to farmers.

Dr Hutton said the imported genetic material had to be free from scrapie or other exotic diseases. A scientist from the Ruakura Animal Research Station will leave for Scandinavia later this month to carry out selection work and arrange the lease or purchase of sheep. A reproduction physiologist and a veterinarian will follow about a month later to organise the surgical work, and Mr A. R. Marshall, a

member of the Meat Board who will be in Europe on board business, will act as an observer on behalf of the United Breeds’ Society. Selected sheep would come from ancestry and performance recorded flocks, said Dr Hutton. Factors to be taken into account in selection would include lambing percentage, maternal and rearing abilities, rate of growth, lean tissue production, carcase composition and the ration of lean meat to fat and bone.

The aim of the project was to get samples from the best performed animals in each of the countries. Embryos from the three breeds

were available in Denmark and from Texel and Finnish Landrace breeds in Finland. However, only semen could be obtained from Sweden. The Oxford Down E regarded as a terminal sire for meat production and the Texel E a meat breed sheep with a strong-woolled white fleece. Finnish Landrace are very fertile sheep with an average lambing percentage of 200 plus. By crossing them with New Zealand’s present breeds, lambing percentages could be increased. Other characteristics include higher milk production, and multiple rearing and strong mothering ability.