hlang
Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:36:00 -0700
Barbados Blackbelly sheep to help ensure that a sheep's genotype matches his phenotypeWhat kind of percentage would match ? How many fullblood are on the American continent ?
Regards Helmut----- Original Message ----- From: "Carol J. Elkins" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 1:24 PM Subject: Re: [blackbelly] breed standards
At 03:25 PM 8/30/2005 -0400, you wrote:Boy, this is still so confusing. So to be called an ABS there must be horns. Before it was horned genetics. I have one ABS with horns and an offspring that was born this year from a previous ram(bad horns from polled ancestry) who has no horns. What is he???The point of a breed standard is to ensure that animals that bear the name exhibit minimum standards. Just as a sheep with patches of white on his body can't be called an American Blackbelly or a Barbados Blackbelly, neither can a ram with no horns be registered as an American Blackbelly. Unfortunately, the reverse is still quite possible--if a ram's phenotype (how he looks visually) is polled, he can be registered as a Barbados Blackbelly. Very soon, the BBSAI hopes to require progeny testing as a requirement of registering Barbados Blackbelly sheep to help ensure that a sheep's genotype matches his phenotype. At the moment, progeny testing is the only method available to indicate a sheep's genetics. It would cost $10,000 or more to genotype a blackbelly sheep.What has happened in the past, to the detriment of the breed, is that buyers have naively purchased polled rams without regard to their ancestry and been dismayed when the "polled" ram makes horned or scurred ram lambs. Horns are very poorly understood in sheep breeds in general and nothing has been studied, to my knowledge, on the horns of American Blackbelly or barbado. Usually, the polled gene is dominant in sheep, but what we've learned is that there also is a gene for scurs and there are several loci on the gene where horns can express themselves. All this confusion makes it very difficult to predict what a ram lamb will have unless that lamb's sire has been tested on several ewes and that lamb's grandsire has also been tested on several ewes. Only then can someone say with medium certainty that they have a polled sheep deserving of being registered as Barbados Blackbelly.Although your ram matches the phenotype for Barbados Blackbelly by being polled, I would encourage you to do quite a bit of progeny testing before you decide whether he can ethically be called Barbados Blackbelly. I've been testing a polled ram whose sire was polled but who I know for a fact came from a horned flock. So far, no horns on any of the ram lambs. I have not registered this ram as polled, and when I sell the ram lambs, I will be totally up front about their parentage and genetics. The most important thing to me is that a buyer be completely aware of what he is buying. There is no guarantee in genetics, so the best we can do as ethical breeders is provide full disclosure of our genetics so that the buyer can weigh the risks and determine for himself if he's willing to accept the risks.There is a lot at stake for most breeders. I had my flock set back for almost 5 years and dozens of sheep were culled in an effort to eradicate the horned genetics introduced by a foundation ewe who was sold to me as having polled genetics. I had three generations of lambs off her before I realized that she was the one genetically responsible for the horned ram lambs that she bore. Because I was building my flock using only her and one other ewe, her genetics went into 50% of my flock. I was inexperienced and trusting and didn't know enough to realize that if the breeder didn't have breeding records on the sheep he probably didn't have a clue about ancestry. I have learned the hard way and have made it my mission to help prevent these tragedies from occurring in other unsuspecting breeders. We all have a tremendous learning curve when we become involved in sheep. There are enough "hard lessons learned" without careless breeding practices being thrown into the mix.Carol Carol Elkins Critterhaven--Registered Barbados Blackbelly Hair Sheep (no shear, no dock, no fuss) Pueblo, Colorado http://www.critterhaven.biz T-shirts, mugs, caps, and more at the Barbados Blackbelly Online Store http://www.cafepress.com/blackbellysheep _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info mailing listVisit the list's homepage at Blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info@lists.blackbellysheep.infohttp://lists.blackbellysheep.info/listinfo.cgi/blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.10.17/85 - Release Date: 30/08/2005
_______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info mailing list Visit the list's homepage at Blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info@lists.blackbellysheep.info http://lists.blackbellysheep.info/listinfo.cgi/blackbelly-blackbellysheep.info