Sheep Ireland has launched a new catalogue for sales of hill sheep.

The catalogue is linked to the Sheep Ireland database and will display genetic information including a ram’s eligibility under the Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS). The scheme has underpinned significant uptake of genotyping in hill flocks with 17 hill breeding groups now linked to Sheep Ireland.

David Coen of Sheep Ireland said the commitment of hill sheep farmers is very encouraging and provides huge opportunities to improve breeding.

“The first new hill ram catalogue will be available for the Waterford Blackface Sheep Breeders sale at 12pm on Saturday in Dungarvan Mart. The response to genotyping has been excellent with 107 of the 166 rams offered genotyped and 60 of these SIS eligible”.