The Shetland Sheep Society now has a new website at
www.shetlandsheepsociety.org.uk
Please
visit the new site and update your bookmarks.
Facilities for Members
- Registration of members' purebred sheep in our 'state of the art' Flock Book
- Extensive pedigree records and searches
- Detailed information on registered sheep
- Annual flock statistics
- Scrapie genotyping figures
- Regional Workshops on many 'Shetland' topics ~ to share knowledge and assist members to assess their own flocks
- Semen export, to assist the breed outside the UK
- Promotion of the breed at shows and sales, with special classes and trophies for Shetland sheep and wool in all parts of the country
- A free quarterly Newsletter is sent to members informing them of committee news, members' doings, letters, show reports, legislation and health issues, and more
- A Premium Ram Scheme has been started, to assist members by identifying top quality mature rams
Activities
As well as the activities mentioned above, the following are available to members
Ram Inspections
Senior inspectors assess a young ram at one of our workshops
Members are encouraged to take part in our voluntary Ram Inspections, for shearling and older rams. These are organised at several venues up and down the country, where a team of trained inspectors will assess the qualities of members' rams and advise on suitability for pure breeding. Ram lambs may also be informally assessed at members' request
Fleece Assessment
Fleece being assessed by some of our wool experts
As a complement to ram inspections, and as an aid to breeding for better fleece quality, members are encouraged to take advantage of the Society's wool sampling for micron counting scheme. Fleece quality both on and off the hoof is a focus for discussion at our workshops
Scrapie genotyping
The Shetland breed was one of the 'first in the field' (1996) to take up the opportunity to have rams blood tested for resistance to Scrapie, ie not coding for Valine at codon 153. We are making good progress towards a generation wholly sired by Scrapie resistant rams. Members continue to use private testing facilities, while others have joined the National Scrapie Plan. Rams resistant to scrapie are indicated in the Flock Book and on Pedigrees with the suffix (SR) to their registration number. All Shetland males offered at our official Sales must have tested resistant to Scrapie.