When you look at the total of Livestock, Dairy and Eggs being produced on American farms, 26.6 Billion # of it is beef and veal. Only .2 Billion is lamb and mutton. This information was found in the Spring 2006 Farm Bureau "Kansas Living" publication.
Currently Michigan's voluntary Scrapie program (MSRRP - Michigan Scrapie Risk Reduction Program) does not allow you to sell any QQ animal for breeding purposes. QQ animals are to be sold for slaughter only. (QQ being at codon 171.) How long before other states follow Michigan's lead? The USDA Meat Animal Research Center (MARC) in Clay Center, NE uses codon 171 in its selection process. The United States government has decided that the codon 171 R gene is important enough to pay for testing for part of our flocks. Consider how the public reacted to the "mad-Cow" scare. The government's knee-jerk reaction was to eliminate entire herds. The small producer has a very hard time recovering from such reactions. If a "Scrapie" scare were to occur, how many of us would be completely eliminated? I believe it will take 10 years to establish an 'RR' flock of Barbados Blackbelly at my location. How many "voluntary" programs will become "mandatory" in the next 10 years? Consider all the government interest and involvement in tagging livestock. How soon before we are "required" to use electronic tags? I do agree that this gene should not be the "ONLY" criteria for culling. If I had two animals that all other factors weighed evenly, I would have to choose the one with the gene. To my knowledge, no studies have been done on hair sheep Scrapie resistance. I do not want to risk my flock to a bureaucrat that does not know the difference between a wool sheep and a hair sheep. This link is for the definition of the United States position on Scrapie. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/scrapie/scrapie_genetics.pdf One paragraph stands out above the rest. "The National Genetics Based Flock Clean-up Plan allows affected producers to retain or move RR sheep, AA QR sheep, and most AV QR sheep without restriction. It also calls for the removal or restriction of all exposed QQ ewes, exposed female goats, and the female offspring of scrapie positive female animals. In a minority of flocks where positive AV QR sheep are identified, exposed AV QR ewes will be removed or restricted. In other flocks when requested by the owner APHIS will remove exposed AV QR ewes for study. All scrapie positive and suspect animals must be removed. In the unlikely event that scrapie is found in a sheep that is neither QQ nor AV QR, additional animals may be required to be removed or restricted." So if any "infected" animal were to show up on my farm, at least I would have a chance of keeping the 'QR' and 'RR' animals. _______________________________________________ This message is from the blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info http://lists.blackbellysheep.info/listinfo.cgi/blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info
