Graham Shepherd’s ram Lowther Lad

The Lleyn Breed winner of the EBLEX Improved Flock Awards for 2011 is the Moorside Flock, owned by Graham Shepherd who farms near Woodplumpton in Lancashire.

Organised through the sheep Better Returns Programme, this award is presented to the performance recorded flock that has shown the most impressive improvement in genetic merit over a 12-month period, within the breed.

Mr Shepherd is a fifth generation farmer who rented Moorside House Farm before buying it 18 years ago. He has been breeding pedigree Lleyns since 2000. A practising vet until three years ago, he used to run the farm as a part time venture. The farm covers 28ha (70 acres); 16ha (40 acres) owned and 12ha (30 acres) rented.

At one time he had 230 breeding ewes but, due to grazing availability, the numbers have reduced to 115. There is also a small herd of 12 Polled Herefords with young stock. All sheep are on grass all year round and all are wintered away.

The Moorside Flock was established 11 years ago when Mr Shepherd purchased 100 shearlings privately from a local breeder. While still working full time as a vet, his breed choice had to be easy-care; with ewes capable of lambing outside within a tight three week period. He was also looking for high lambing percentages and good mothering.

He started recording immediately so he could improve the overall performance of the flock. First he favoured maternal traits, but more recently has concentrated on terminal sire traits as well, using back-fat scanning to measure muscle depth. He has been testing for Myomax genes for the past five years.

To minimise handling at lambing, Mr Shepherd has been using DNA profiling to confirm parentage. This helps to accurately establish which lambs are out of which ewes, eliminating errors from both natural and forced mis-mothering.

To promote the easycare characteristics any ewe that has needed assistance at lambing, been lame twice or has a daggy backend is culled. After this, figures are compared to remove the poorer performers, although actual replacement rate depends on the price of breeding stock at the time and the quality of the stock left. Older ewes with good indexes that have proven their genetic worth can remain within the flock.

Ram lambs kept for breeding have to be within the top 25% of the index, and are kept thorough the winter to use or sell as shearlings. They are culled then according to conformation and structural soundness, being reconsidered at each handling opportunity. The lower performing ram lambs are sold at live markets.

After first choosing on structural soundness, Mr Shepherd relies heavily on figures to select his rams for breeding. He considers overall maternal and terminal indexes as well as individual EBV traits. For example, when the flock’s litter size EBV was reducing he countered this by using a tup with a positive EBV for this trait. And by using muscle EBVs traits he has increased average loin muscle significantly.

“Through EBVs I aim to improve structural soundness, conformation and figures in that order,” says Mr Shepherd. “With my type of flock and business objectives, I select on the qualities of good pedigree animals for breeding, rather than for slaughter, although of course I want my rams to confer good terminal sire traits to the commercial ewes they mate with.”

Currently chairman for the Lleyn Sire Recording Scheme (SRS), Mr Shepherd finds it useful to share rams between this group and compare the results.

Commenting on winning the award, Mr Shepherd puts much of his success down to his stock ram, Lowther Lad. Purchased as a 12-month old hog in April 2008, he is Myomax Gold and has a very high muscle depth. He has recently been selected as a ram for the EBLEX Ram Linkage Scheme. Rigorous culling of underperforming ewes in the breeding flock has also contributed to the win.

Most of the rams and females are sold off the farm to commercial buyers, with a few going through auctions at society sales. Mr Shepherd finds that most ram buyers are interested in performance figures, and some commercial producers are prepared to pay well for good rams with figures; last year one ram achieved 2600 guineas.

More output through genetics
Thomas and Isabelle Ostle run a 250ha beef, sheep and arable farm on the western fringe of the Lake District National Park, with 400 mule and pedigree Lleyn ewes. They recognised that the easiest way to achieve more output from there sheep is through genetics and performance recorded stock rams.

Mrs Ostle met Graham Shepherd at North Sheep and was interested in the use of the Myomax gene. They bought two shearling rams from him in 2009 (one silver and one gold) and two more a year later.

“When selecting rams we take Mr Shepherd’s advice when it comes to the figures,” says Mrs Ostle. “The first two rams produced lambs that finished around 38kg with a classification of R2/3L - which is spot on.

“Since buying recorded Lleyn rams the grades we are achieving at slaughter have improved significantly and this is the main benefit for us. The Moorside rams are certainly leaving a very positive stamp on our flock.”

Recording performance is vital
“This is the fifth year Sheep BRP has made these awards,” says EBLEX sheep breeding specialist Samuel Boon. “The progress made since then has been significant, and many more producers – pedigree and commercial, are using tools like EBVs to help make their breeding decisions. This in turn is making their businesses more profitable and the industry more competitive as a whole.”

“Graham is to be congratulated for his commitment to improving the Lleyn breed.
Performance recording forms the backbone to his success, and he and his customers benefit from this more informed approach to breeding.”

Information from
The EBLEX Better Returns Programme

Improved Flock Awards 2011
Graham Shepherd - Moorside Lleyn Flock
At 21 March 2011