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PORTLAND SHEEP BREEDERS GROUP ANNUAL EVENT AND AGM

NSA SHEEP 2010 TUESDAY 3RD AUGUST 2010

THREE COUNTIES SHOWGROUND, MALVERN, WORCESTERSHIRE WR13 6NW

The Portland Sheep Breeders Group Annual Event will be at the NSA SHEEP 2010 on Tuesday 3rd August 2010. This is an amazing event totally dedicated to all things sheep. If you have never been it is well worth a visit.

Among the displays and attractions are sheep dog trials, all manner of handling equipment, British native and commercial sheep as well as continental sheep, also a fleece competition in which the overall winner receives the trophy for the Golden Fleece. Fiona MacKenzie was the winner in 2006 with her Portland fleece!

We will have the Breed Stand there together with a display of Portland sheep. We are also holding our own fleece competition open to our members where the Elizabeth Harris Chalice will be presented for the Best Portland Fleece. In the past at this event exhibitors of fleeces also received a free entry ticket to the show.

Please join us for a glass of wine in one of the Conference Tents next to the exhibition halls late afternoon for the Portland Sheep Breeders Group AGM. The precise time and directions to the tent will be displayed at our Breed Stand on the day.

In the evening we have booked a table at The Swan Inn, Worcester Road, Hanley Swan, Worcester WR8 0EA for an informal meal. The Swan Inn is situated a few miles outside Malvern. If you would like to join us please email the webmaster with your contact details.

The Showground has ample free parking and tickets will be £10 on the gate, £5 for NSA members, (NSA membership card must be shown) or a booking form can be downloaded in May from the NSA website for reduced price tickets.

Please visit the website below for more information regarding tickets, accommodation and directions: www.nationalsheep.org.uk

 

Schedules will soon be dropping through letterboxes across the country for the coming showing season. Last year there was a noticeable reduction in animals entered in Portland classes at a number of the shows. This has forced some show organisers to amalgamate Portlands into other classes for this year because of a lack of numbers. Please try to support shows that have separate Portland classes or if you do not have any in your area enter the mixed classes instead. If enough Portlands are entered they will eventually have their own classes! Visit our ‘Show Page’ for dates of shows and help on how to go about showing!

Are there any Portland sheep breeders out there who crossbreed their Portlands to produce lambs for market? PSBG would be interested in your experiences, particularly information of your 2010 lambing season such as the sire used, the lamb weights at birth, the finishing weight and age of lambs ready for market and also any lambing problems. If you are interested in taking part in this survey please phone Norman Jones on 01297 561072 for a questionaire sheet.

BLUETONGUE UPDATE - 23rd SEPTEMBER 2009

There have been no confirmed cases in Britain in 2009. However, sheep owners still need to keep vigilant.

You can download the updated version of the UK Bluetongue Control Strategy for 2009 and also all the up to the minute information regarding licences amd movement restrictions from the DEFRA website by following the DEFRA link on this page

Links: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/bluetongue/latest/

http://www.nfuonline.com?x26679.xml

If we all act now we may be able limit the damage caused by this serious threat.

DON’T HESITATE – VACCINATE!

RBST GENE BANK RAM SEMEN COLLECT 2008/2009

DO YOU HAVE A RARE BREED RAM? THEN THE RBST NEED YOUR HELP!

Despite semen collection from rams under the National Scrapie Plan (NSP) finishing in March 2008, RBST are still working to collect ram and male goat semen from breeds on the RBST Watchlist this season (2008/09). RBST started these collections in 2002, following the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in 2001 and collections are ongoing. Last year's FMD and Bluetongue outbreaks further highlighted the need to continue to work together to conserve our rare breeds by collecting semen as well as by breeding live animals.

The aim of the RBST semen collection project is to collect from 25 unrelated rams of each breed, to represent the widest genetic diversity available in the current population. The RBST welcomes nominations of registered rams for consideration, and would like your help to pass on our message to ram owners and breeders, that the RBST ram semen project is still ongoing, and needs more rams to be put forward.

Please download a copy of the updated information pack for the RBST ram semen collection project, and copies of postcards explaining about the project. For further information please email Claire Barber claire.barber@rbst.org.uk or telephone the RBST on 0247669 6551

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CALKE ABBEY EVENT 4TH & 5TH JULY 2009

Some thirty Portland breeders gathered at Calke Abbey by kind permission of the National Trust to see the Calke founder flock at home within the park and to hear presentations on their history, Portland genetics and the potential for using pedigree data, DNA analysis and Artificial Insemination (AI) and Embryo Transfer techniques in a breeding programme to conserve Founder lines.

Norman Jones told the story of how Sir Henry Harpur brought his original sheep from Portland to Calke in 1770 where he had realised that they would be better suited to the limestone geology than some of the local breeds of the time. We were reminded of the controversy surrounding their inclusion in the flock book in the late eighties (all documented in Norman’s book on the breed history) before moving on to hear Lawrence Alderson’s analysis of the contribution of the Harpur-Crewe line to the breed profile since the early days of the RBST. Techniques for constructing breed profiles now include computer analysis of pedigree data (currently using ‘Geneped’) to identify the contribution of founder lines to any animal, and the coefficient of inbreeding, together with DNA sampling to characterise the genetic makeup of the breed. There is ongoing interpretation of the sire lines for a new RBST led Portland conservation breeding programme, and we hope that this will soon include the ewe lines. (A summary of Lawrence’s talk can be read below.)

The recognition that there are rare lines within the Portland breed and awareness of the threat posed by disease outbreaks such as FMD prompted an invitation to Dewi Jones of Innovis (the company conducting the RBST’s semen collection project) to speak to us about the practical aspects of AI in sheep. Dewi was unable to attend but we were fortunate that Julie Finch could take his place and give us a fascinating talk on the need for a laparoscopic insemination in ewes due to their complicated cervical anatomy, and the potential for using Embryo Transfer to conserve ewe lines. These techniques are routinely carried out by Innovis in their centres at Edinburgh and Hereford, and are less invasive than one might imagine, nor as expensive.

In the afternoon we were treated to Calke Head Warden Bill Cove’s knowledgeable introduction to the Calke sheep themselves. Bill has been closely associated with Calke both before and during the late Norman Clarke’s time as Warden. We saw the ewe flock at close quarters, and helped to sample ten ewes for Lawrence’s DNA analysis (a small drop of blood from the nose is blotted onto a pad) and Kate Kershaw’s ongoing wool analysis project (a sample of wool from the flank was collected).

The Calke sheep were seen to have the characteristically darker face and leg colouring expected, and some exhibit a little lighter shading around the eyes and the muzzle, though this is not as pronounced as in sheep of the Dorset type. Many have a velvety sheen to the hair on the face. We noticed a straighter profile and flared nostrils, together with a prominent eye and swept back horns. The sheep were smaller than many of us had expected, and were estimated to be within the 38 – 40 kg range dictated by the breed description; they were also finely boned in contrast to some of those of Calke descent outside the foundation flock. They are a homogenous group with a clear Portland identity. Bill confirmed to us that the Calke Abbey sheep had never been outbred during his memory. He pointed out one older and paler ewe and noted that the colour became less strong with age. Bill described some lambing difficulties due to horn buds (Lawrence considered that this could be due to the fly-away tendency of the horn growth producing a more upright and prominent horn bud); several of the ewes were fostering commercial Suffolk cross lambs having lost their own. Bill finds that they are good mothers, though those that do not wish to foster cannot be persuaded!

Some twenty rams were also brought closer for us to see. Again they were dark in face and leg but not noticeably larger than normal. Bill sells rams occasionally when asked, but generally keeps around half a dozen for breeding, swapping them after a couple of weeks of tupping and changing the raddle colour for pedigree purposes.
In the early days, a more whole-flock approach was taken to breeding and it is considered that the lines within the flock are homogenous, so that the Calke line should be considered as a single Harpur-Crewe founder line.

 

We returned to the Stable Block to hear the results of the fleece competition, judged in our absence by Stephen Spencer, who gave every entrant notes on the score card, and described the attributes of the winning shearling fleece as primarily uniformity and fineness with strength, together with even crimp and colour. He also noted the ‘bloom’ of the fleece giving a luminous quality. Stephen went on to describe other fleeces to illustrate the qualities of the fleece being judged.
1. Michelle Jones
2. Kate Kershaw
3. Kate Kershaw
4. Michelle Jones

Tessa Hucklesby then pointed out how fleece qualities are important for handspinners. Congratulations to Michelle on winning the spectacular Elizabeth Harris Chalice, which was presented following the Dinner in the Abbey Restaurant. The excellent menu was of local ingredients, and Portland hogget from the Estate.


Some returned the next day to tour the House and see it’s incredible collections, including the stuffed Portland ram head and hear of the conservation work within the house. Calke Abbey is well worth a visit, though it was noted that despite the maintenance of the Portland flock being a condition of the transfer of the estate to the National Trust, one couldn’t buy a postcard of sheep in the shop! Further pictures will be added to the PSBG website.

We are very grateful to Alison Thornhill (Events Manager for Calke, and herself a Portland breeder), Bill Cove and Stephen Lathaen and the Calke Staff (especially Dawn, who looked after the Breed Stand and fleeces during the morning session) for making us so welcome and giving us such an enjoyable visit. The data-projector was kindly loaned by Sturminster Newton High School.



PORTLAND BREED PROFILES


Background
Modern technology has provided an increasing array of scientific aids to assist the fundamental ingrained skills and visual judgement of the pedigree breeder. They must be harnessed and interpreted effectively to complement the accumulated knowledge of bloodlines and breeding programmes that have previously determined the success of each breed. Currently, Portland breeders can take advantage of five main breed ‘profiles’, namely:

1) geographic distribution; Portlands are not at risk from geographical concentration
2) genetic (scrapie); the Portland breed is high ARR/ARR and is not at risk
3) genetic (flock); these are ad hoc programmes such as applied to the Marsden flock
4) genetic (breed structure); this is an ongoing programme to analyse Portland bloodlines
5) genetic (DNA); this is an ongoing programme to clarify breed purity.

Breed structure profile
Purpose
This profile is a basic tool for understanding the genetic status of a breed, and the bloodlines within it. 2009 is the 30th anniversary of the first Portland analysis in 1979 using the University of Reading programme, and subsequent analyses have been carried out by CSL (1980s), Mumps (1990s and Marsden 2000s) and currently Geneped. The objectives of these analyses were to use pedigree data from the Combined Flock Book (now in its 36th volume) to define founder and ancestral contributions to the breed and to calculate the level of inbreeding.

Value
The early analyses from 1979 to the mid-200s were the basis for the breeding advice I provided to Portland breeders, and those from 1979 to the 1990s were used to establish a system of cyclic crossing, which was effective in reducing the level of inbreeding from c.8% in the 1980s to 5-6% in the 1990s. They also showed the Genetic Conservation Index (GCI) for each animal, although that is no longer calculated. Other analyses, especially work by Bruford, showed the genetic distinctiveness of the Portland, while more specific analyses enabled individual units, such as Marsden, to concentrate the desired influence in the flock.
Some of the benefits have carried through into current analyses. The 2009 Geneped analysis enables the level of inbreeding to be compared with earlier figures, and it allows an estimation of the proportion of founders, which continue to make a contribution to the breed. On the other hand, it has significant limitations:
1) It does not show female founders although these comprise c.75% of the founders, account for almost 70% of the ancestry of the breed, and are at the greatest risk of ‘extinction’.
2) Only male founders are shown, and these lack rigorous definition. Some of the 28 rams are duplicates and others share a common ancestry. For example, two founders in the current analysis, 2440 and 2513 (who was sire of the polled ewe in the photograph in early volumes of CFB) shared the same sire. On the other hand, HC81 is omitted but should be included as he contributes through his daughters. The 28 male founders should be revised to a list of less than 20 genuine founders.
3) Non-Portland (grading-up) founders are not shown, and this is a serious shortcoming.

These limitations need to be addressed, and a continuation of the breeding programme using breed analyses is not possible until a full founder analysis (i.e. including females and non-Portland founders) is available, and until the male founders have been rationalised.

Harpur Crewe (HC) influence
Initially the HC influence was slight, being less than 4% in 1979. It increased gradually, but the main surge came after the influx to CFB of more than 150 animals from Calke in 1990. This increased the HC continuation to the breed to almost 24% (1996) and it probably has continued at about that level although the absence of female founders in the 2009 analysis allows only an approximate comparison.
The HC influence varies in different sections of the breed. Overall it is 20+%, and in the Marsden flock it is only 6-7%, but in the Calke flock it is 100% as no other rams have been introduced.

Summary
The breeding programme based on the early analyses begun in 1979 was successful in establishing a system of cyclic crossing, which controlled inbreeding and maintained bloodlines. In order to continue that programme three problems must first be addressed:
1) a full breed analysis (i.e. all founders) must be prepared
2) anomalies among the founder rams must be corrected
3) the DNA profile must be completed.

Breed DNA Profile
Purpose
The profile is primarily intended as a tool to protect the genetic integrity (purity) of the breed by constructing a breed profile from the analysis of results from DNA testing at 21 microsatellite loci (genes). Blood-spot material, from a representative sample of the breed, is analysed in a NZ laboratory and the results are used to develop the breed profile.
The programme was started in 2008. Currently, blood has been taken from 85 donor animals and 67 test results have been completed. The target is 100 test results.

Value
DNA test results have several potential outcomes of value to the Portland, namely:
1) verification of parentage; this is simple and effective provided results are available from all relevant animals
2) provenance of products; this is simple and effective provided a sample has been take from the donor animal
3) assigning individuals to a breed; an outcome of considerable importance for both RBST and the Portland breed; it is effective if the DNA test results include enough donor animals (50-100) and enough markers (loci or genes) (15-20); the provisional Portland profile indicates that there will be several loci which enable high resolution of assignment to breed [see figure 1]

Figure 1

A high frequency (more than 60%) at 12 loci [see also figure 2]: enhances the ability to detect aberrant alleles and suspect animals; samples were collected from other breeds for comparison (e.g. Herdwick, Hill Radnor)


Figure 2

4) screening Supplementary Register applicant animals; effective to 98% certainty given the completion of a breed profile as above.
5) measures of heterozygosity (within-breed diversity); comparison with other breeds indicates that heterozygosity of the Portland is lower than some other numerically small breeds, and appears comparable to White Park cattle.

Lawrence Alderson lawrence@clltd.demon.co.uk


 
Chairman’s Report to AGM for 2008 - 2009

In a year dominated by the credit crunch, anxiety over the impending introduction of Electronic tagging and the continuing threat of bluetongue infection, there have been many uncertainties over the effect on farming and rare breeds in particular. These issues continue to cause concern that fewer people will breed pedigree Portlands. However, the year has also seen a full programme of breed promotion and events, together with new initiatives on breed conservation and analysis. It is to be hoped that Portland Breeders will respond positively
to the new challenges before us.

The Breed Stand was taken to Sheep South-West 2009 by Norman & Michelle Jones where Michelle’s Portland wool entries were once again successful in the Fleece Competition. Tessa Hucklesby has co-ordinated the Stand’s appearance at a number of Events and Justin Coke has toured a number of shows with it to promote the Breed. In contrast to last year’s disruption of the Showing Calendar by Bluetongue restrictions (and weather), all the planned shows have gone ahead including our Premier classes at the New Forest Show where Leona Shaughnessy’s ram took the Portland Salver and also the Reserve Interbreed Championship. Our thanks are due to all those who give up their time to exhibit and promote the Breed and inform the public of the qualities of our sheep. There is room for many more to contribute in this way.

At the Combined Flock Book Breeders meeting in May Tim Brigstocke updated us on the situation regarding EID, and the importance of vaccinating against Bluetongue. Two new and exciting RBST initiatives were introduced and these look set to give us more precise information for the conservation of rare gene pools: DNA profiling of the breed is now well under way, and Geneped analysis of pedigree data from birth notification and registrations has given rise to a new breed conservation programme to monitor and increase the contribution of under-represented founder animals in the National Flock. A Portland sub-committee has been formed with myself as Liaison Officer which has met with Dawn Teverson to discuss the analysis of Portland bloodlines and six have been identified for attention this year. A number of breeders are already selecting rams to maintain these rare lines and several rams will be contributing to the RBST semen bank. The programme will be reviewed annually and it is envisaged that female founders will be added to the analysis next year. The analysis depends on accurate recording of pedigree information and so it is vital that all breeders update Grassroots with birth notifications for all pedigree lambs and continue to register their sheep. To encourage this registration transfers are now free (as are birth notifications) and measures are to be introduced to reduce the burden of registration fees for larger flocks. These are practical conservation programmes that we can all be involved in, and which will benefit the Breed.

This year’s Annual Event took place at Calke Abbey where some 30 members were privileged to see the Calke Foundation line sheep in their spectacular setting. Blood samples were taken from ewes for the Breed DNA profile and wool samples for inclusion in fleece analysis. The programme also included presentations by Norman Jones on breed history, Lawrence Alderson on Portland bloodlines and Julie Finch of Innovis on AI and embryo transfer in sheep. The fleece competition, judged by Stephen Spencer for the Elizabeth Harris Chalice (previously awarded at Melton Mowbray) was won by Michelle Jones. We then enjoyed a superb dinner in the Abbey restaurant. We are indebted to the National Trust, and particularly Alison Thornhill and Bill Cove for their hospitality and knowledgeable contributions to the programme. My thanks are also due to Tessa Hucklesby for all her help in organising the Event and making it such a success.

The fleece analysis project begun as part of the five year plan can now be completed thanks to Kate Kershaw’s efforts and successful application for the remainder of the funds allocated by the Trust, (Kate herself should be congratulated for all her work, as well as for her fantastic performance at the Singleton Show where her fleece achieved a perfect score of 100%, and she won both Champion and Reserve in the Ring.) The committee has discussed making a new application for a further five year programme to benefit the Breed and suggestions from members for inclusion in this would be welcome.

Breeders now have the opportunity to use the finishing unit for Portlands set up by Steve Gould, who is actively promoting mutton in South Dorset. This is a very welcome marketing initiative, and we hope that it will raise the profile of our high quality meat in the run up to the Olympic sailing events to be held on Portland and in Weymouth Bay in 2012. A suggestion has been made for a meat production related Event to be held in the area next year.

The ‘new’ Website has been well used this year, with a number of members advertising through the classified pages. Many thanks go to Jo Jones and Tessa Hucklesby for managing the site. New material, particularly pictures would be welcomed to refresh the pages, please contribute. After four years of editing the Newsletter, Sheila Wellman is stepping down; she has made stirling efforts in producing and updating it for which we are extremely grateful.

I have been honoured to act as Chairman for the last year, my thanks go to the committee for all their hard work, especially to Esther for her conscientious efforts as Treasurer, to Tessa for her unfailing organisation as Show Secretary, to Normans & Michelle Jones for their tireless commitment to promoting Portlands and as membership secretary, and to Andrew Jenkins for his undaunted approach to his first year as Secretary.

Fiona MacKenzie