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The first meeting of this committee was held on
Tuesday 24th November 2009 at the Charolais Cattle Society building.
Present: G Kiddy (Chair), S Booth, T Bretherton, A Gready, R
Lutwyche, J Millard,
D Norman, R Overend, S Richardson, A Robinson, A Rose, C Vaughan, J
Wreakes, F Slade (Honorary Vice President) and M Bates (Secretary).
Apologies were received from: C Coe,
S Loveless.
Andrew Robinson was appointed as Deputy Chair of the committee; his
knowledge of herd books will be invaluable to the deliberations of
this committee. Tracey Bretherton and John Millard were appointed as
Council deputies.
It was agreed that Rex Walters would be co-opted onto the committee
to provide genetic advice and it is hoped he will come to the next
meeting to talk about genetic analysis & BLUP. It was also agreed to
speak to Andrew Walton to see if his expertise could assist the
committee.
The objectives of the committee were agreed as follows Herdbook
publication – The committee agreed that hardback volumes of the
herdbook should continue to be published. An editing sub committee,
comprising Andrew Robinson, Richard Lutwyche, Guy Kiddy, Stephen
Booth and Steve Richardson, was established to oversee the annual
publication of the Herdbooks and to try & complete some of the
missing years herdbooks. Genetic Analysis.
The committee agreed that the Geneped software should be used to
identify genetically unique pigs for both in-situ and ex situ
conservation programmes. The committee also proposed developing a
method to monitor inbreeding that could be used by members for sire
selection.
Estimated Breeding Values – This was felt to be important especially
to the modern breeds to help in the selling of breeding stock both
at home and abroad.
DNA testing – The committee agreed that parentage testing for
pedigree litters should be the priority for this programme but that
it was a lower priority than other aspects of the committees work.
Breed Surveys – The committee discussed the proposed schedule for
the 2009 survey and agreed a January start date. It was agreed to
exclude birth notified pigs from the survey to make it simpler to
complete
Heritage Semen Bank – Semen from an Oxford Sandy & Black boar is
shortly to be added to the bank. A working group has been set up to
draw up a list of boars to be added to the semen bank and to look at
the possibility of sponsorship. Steve Richardson agreed to lead on
this with help from Robert Overend and Alan Rose.
Guy Kiddy proposed tapping into training funds to develop workshops
for pedigree breeding as an important part of conservation was to
select better animals as the parents of the next generation. He
agreed to draw up a training proposal to be submitted for 50% grant
funding. Two courses have now been accepted for funding by
Landskills East
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