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Lakeland Carcass Sire Project | |
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| |  The purpose of the project is to identify the terminal sire breeds that produce the highest value lambs for the premium lamb market, including farm direct markets and the index-pricing grid at Sunterra Meats, Innisfail.
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Rams of five different terminal sire breeds (Suffolk, Texel, Charollais, Canadian Arcott and Ile de France) will be mated to the Lakeland College ewe flock to produce crossbred lambs. Growth rates and carcass data from the lambs will be collected and analyzed in order to compare these breeds. The project will run for two production cycles (breeding, lambing, slaughter), from the summer of 2005 until the research results are published in the winter of 2007.
The crossbred ewe flock at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alberta was a mixture of maternal breeds, representative of most farm flocks in western Canada. In 2006, that flock was replaced by 250 white-faced range ewes. These ewes have no terminal sire genetics, which will make the statistical model easier to work with. The new sheep facility at the college is suitable for applied research like the carcass sire project, and the college farm is a realistic model for lamb production under prairie conditions.
Better lambs from better rams...
Background information
Who's paying the bills?
Project funding
Are we there yet?
Timeline and project updates
Friends of the Lakeland Project
Industry support across Canada
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For more information about the content of this document, contact Tracy Hagedorn.
This information published to the web on January 25, 2006.
Last Reviewed/Revised on January 11, 2008.
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