Breeding Low Methane Sheep

我们的目标是培育具有自然低碳足迹的绵羊，帮助英国的绵羊农民为英国农业实现净零做出积极贡献。我们是一个具有前瞻性的绵羊农民和育种者的联盟，他们将遗传科学应用到我们的绵羊饲养中，以便他们能够最好、最有效地利用牧草和饲料，生产出可持续和健康的高营养价值羊肉。通过放牧的方式利用草原也有助于将碳固定在土壤中。我们共同相信，我们可以通过利用遗传科学和育种来自然地减少其饲料消化过程中的自然副产品甲烷的数量，从而减少绵羊养殖的碳足迹，从而进一步提高绵羊的可持续性。这个项目将使我们能够收集和建立必要的数据，并开发所需的工具，从基因上减少绵羊的甲烷排放，进而减少绵羊的碳足迹；并展示使用低碳绵羊可能对整个农场的碳足迹产生的影响。为了实现这一目标，我们将制定农场协议，通过使用新的创新工具和技术，测量或预测绵羊的甲烷排放，以及单个动物水平的健康、生产和效率特征。我们将研究绵羊释放较低水平甲烷的遗传潜力与瘤胃大小和微生物区系之间的生物学关系，以及与母羊生产力、效率和健康之间的生物学关系，因为我们希望避免任何意想不到的绵羊生理、健康或福利变化。为了扩大该项目的影响，超出我们自己的羊群，我们打算与整个英格兰的其他绵羊饲养者和农民合作，与供应链合作伙伴和更广泛的行业机构合作开展一项广泛的沟通计划。综合知识交流方案将确定将项目工作的产出和影响传达给其他农民的最有效方式，以帮助教育和支持他们在自己的群体中进行基因改变，从而提高他们的生产力、可持续性、复原力和盈利能力。

Our aim is to breed sheep with a naturally low carbon footprint to help English sheep farmers make a positive contribution to the journey towards Net Zero for UK agriculture.We are an alliance of forward-thinking sheep farmers and breeders who apply genetic science to the breeding of our sheep so that they can make the best, most efficient use of grass and forage to produce sustainable and healthy lamb of high nutritive value. Making use of grasslands by way of sheep grazing also helps sequester carbon into the soil. We collectively believe we can improve the sustainability of our sheep further by using genetic science and breeding to naturally reduce the amount of methane, which is a natural by-product of their forage digestion process, and therefore reduce the carbon footprint of sheep farming.This project will allow us to collect and build the necessary data, and develop the tools required to genetically reduce the methane emissions, and in turn, carbon footprint of sheep; and demonstrate the impact of using low-carbon sheep may have on whole farm carbon footprints.To achieve this, we will develop on-farm protocols to measure or predict methane emissions of sheep, alongside health, production and efficiency traits at the individual animal level, through using new innovative tools and technologies. We will investigate biological relationships between the genetic potential of sheep to emit lower levels of methane with rumen size and microbiota and with ewe productivity, efficiency and health, as we want to avoid any unintended changes in sheep physiology, health or welfare.To widen the impact of the project beyond our own flocks, we intend to carry out a wide-reaching programme of communication with other sheep breeders and farmers throughout England, in collaboration with supply chain partners and wider industry bodies. The integrated knowledge exchange programme will identify the most effective ways of communicating the outputs and implications of the project's work to other farmers to help educate and support them to make genetic changes in their flocks that will improve their productivity, sustainability, resilience and profitability.