Watching the lambs natural growth rates is something we never get tired of seeing. Growing from ~5kg at birth to 40kg has dramatically sped up due to genetic gain.

Traditionally in the 1990’s this would have taken around 21 weeks, now it takes 12-14 weeks! Not only is this great for cashflow, it is also good for the environment as it reduces the flocks emission’s intensity.

In addition to growth we also wish to have good carcass attributes and therefore we use technologies such as ultrasound scanning to measure backfat and muscle depth at around 40kg of weight.

Pictured below is a lamb being ultrasound scanned and also a view of the scan image.

Once collected, all phenotypic data is submitted to the British Texel Sheep Society and included in their National Texel Evaluation service.

The results from this allow animals to be compared on a like for like basis across the breed allowing genetically superior animals to be identified and ranked.