Breeders have tools at their disposal to help make decisions as to choice of rams and possible matings, using the tools offered by Grassroots.
Kinship Analysis
Grassroots offers the facility via the breed society office to run a full kinship analysis to help members understand the results of potential matings and to highlight where animals might be too closely related to be used for breeding. The kinship report is a probability calculation, but it can be skewed if pedigrees are incomplete or of different lengths. There is also no absolute number above or below which it is safe to breed. The standard kinship report explains this and makes comparison with the mean inbreeding coefficient for the current live population. However, there is also the potential for this to be skewed when not all breeders record all deaths.
Check Mate
Check Mate is a simple system developed to help members avoid mating closely related animals. It is simple to use and accessible to all members via Grassroots online. It can be found in the ‘Manage my Animals’ menu at top right of the screen. Simply select any male and one of your own females.
Click on calculate and you will be offered the four generation pedigree of the prospective offspring with common ancestors highlighted.
Common ancestors who first appear in the first or second generation are in orange, in the third generation are yellow and the fourth are green.
It is simple, all you need to do is click on the button, and follow the instructions on the screen. Check Mate is a quick and easy way to check potential matings.
However, there is a manual and video on the Grassroots website for how to use the whole system, and further information on the Southdown Sheep Society website too.
Click on For Farmers or click on Online Registry
