Breeding goals and strategies for organic sheep production

Breeding goals for conventional sheep production focus on improving traits such as lamb growth and litter size. In other livestock species (e.g. pigs, poultry and dairy cattle), there is evidence that such narrow breeding objectives in the past may have been antagonistic to animal health and welfare (Rauw et al., 1998). Organic sheep Production systems require wider breeding goals that address issues of sustainability, health and flock efficiency. Such breeding strategies are likely to appeal to the ethos of organic livestock producers, whilst making organic production a viable and competitive alternative to conventional systems of production. Traits that improve flock efficiency and sustainability have recently been incorporated into new breeding programmes and are in the early stages of being tested at SAC. Their use is predicted to improve flock performance and financial viability without detriment to ewe or lamb survival in extensive hill farming situations. Selection of sheep with improved resistance to disease potentially increases animal health, welfare and productivity and the incorporation of elements of disease resistance into structured breeding programmes will reduce dependency on chemical solutions to control disease in farm livestock. Knowledge of the genetic associations among ewe productivity and indicators of disease is required prior to their inclusion into breeding programmes, as are appropriate economic values that may reflect societal preferences for high welfare food production. The use of genotype information (e.g. for resistance to scrapie), knowledge of genetic markers for resistance to disease and the benefits that the integration of such information can bring to structured organic breeding programmes are outlined.