Hello everybody! I have received my results on the Codon 171 Scrapie resistance testing. This post may fall into the "too much information category" so hang on!
I have 10 "QR" rams! Four of these rams are 100% Barbados Blackbelly. Three of these Barbados Blackbelly rams are 50% Carol Elkins "Zane" genetics and 50% of my original "Dodge WIN0301399P" genetics. The fourth Barbados Blackbelly ram is a lamb born in December 2005. He is genetically 25% "Dodge WIN0301399P", 25% of a ewe from Texas, and 50% of a ram from South Dakota. So far he is smooth polled and perfectly marked! I had 15 ewes come back testing "QR" and 2 testing "RR". All of these ewes were less than 100% and more than 50% Blackbelly. I say "Blackbelly" because they may be 100% Barbados Blackbelly, 100% American Blackbelly or anything between. What I found out through all of this is my original "Dodge" was "QR" or "RR". And his sons I briefly used "Flash" & "Julius" were probably "QR". I didn't test any 100% Barbados Blackbelly ewes because I didn't expect good results! Instead I focused on testing ewes that in my opinion had a greater chance of getting "QR" or "RR" results. Assuming "QR" status on my "Dodge" ram and his sons half of their prodigy should be "QR". That would mean I should have 50 or more ewes that are at least "QR". That would put about 25% to 35% of my flock at "QR" status. I cannot afford to test the entire flock although I wish I could. I do intend to keep testing promising ram lambs in the future! Speaking of ram lambs... I have three incredible "Stud" rams available for sale that tested "QQ"! I am rather heart broken these guys didn't test "QR" or better! Two rams are solid Red Brown (50% Blackbelly, 25% Dorper, & 25% Polypay) and I assume heterozygous on horns 50/50. One solid Black ram (25% Blackbelly, 25% Dorper, 25% Polypay, 12.5% Katahdin, 6.25% Columbia, 3.125% Hampshire, & 3.125% Suffolk) probably homozygous polled. At this time they appear to have hair coats! I would rather sell them for breeding rams than wethers! All three are much larger than the other 13 December born ram lambs! Mark _______________________________________________ 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
