14-ATC2. Using genomic technologies to reduce mastitis in meat sheep

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This project aims to address the sustainable intensification of sheep meat through the exploration of genomic selection for disease resistance. With pure- and crossbred Texel sheep, new high (700K ) and existing (50K and 1K) density genome screening ('SNP') technology and bioinformatic procedures will be used to, i) identify SNPS that are significantly related to mastitis, and ii) for new imputation analyses that will underpin future R&D and exploitation of use with lower density (6-9K), more affordable SNP technology in the future. The project will build on two previous 'Spark Award' projects by the Texel Society on mastitis, to establish which different phenotyping strategies are the best predictors of clinical and subclinical mastitis and importantly, which are most likely to be routinely undertaken by farmers to include as part of their wider breeding goals. These include a combination of farmer-driven phenotyping protocols for recording, conformation scoring and lab-based procedures including the California Mastitis Testing (CMT) procedure that can be undertaken without the need for laboratory testing. As part of this exploratory research, the first genomic predictions of breeding value (GEBVs) for the different definitions of mastitis will be undertaken and delivered to the participating breeders with a view to them being routinely undertaken in tandem with other breeding goal traits that are collected as part of Signet's Sheepbreeder breed improvement plan.