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Report on Assessment Day 2006

There were 44 animals, of which 14 were shearling rams, 14 flock ewes and 16 ram lambs.
Stock from different members was compared in the small ring and the top 3 shearling rams were chosen as follows:
The Champion ram was an outstanding animal CHB AC542 Churchbridge Churchill bred by Maurice Jones but now
owned by Julie Bury. It had a SI of 204 (top 25% of stock rams).
A close runner-up was another ram bred by Maurice Jones CHB AC561. This had a SI in the top 5%
Both shearling rams were from different genetic lines.
In 3rd postion was JER 05 016 a ram bred by Janet Richardson out of a Samson ewe but sired by the Dutch ram
imported by Marjorie Vile.

The ram lambs were assessed by Richard Pilkington who had a tough job on his hands.
He selected a lamb JER 06 005 (SI 240) owned by Janet (sired by CHB AB141 Churchbridge Brigand), followed by
AST 06 0175 (SI 154) from Stan Kilby and then JUB 06 024 (SI 228) from Julie, both sired by AST Z16 Astley Zurich.
These ram lambs are being retained within the group.

The top 3 ram lambs - JER 06 05 is in the foreground

Robin Johnson judged the ewes for order of merit cards. He had much praise for the ewes especially a 7 year old ewe
Burford Venetia JUB V15 (sire JH S24) from Julie Bury
Julie supplied a complete review of this ewe's lambing history with 10 lambs to her credit, this ewe shows all the
excellent qualities of a Bleu ewe: longevity and productivity, very correct with a lovely mouth and udder, always
lambing on her own, a very milky and good mother. Her 2003 ewe lamb and 2005 grand-daughter are carrying on
a highly successful Show tradition.
Robin also chose two shearling ewes: CHB AC571 (SI 285) and JER 05 004 (SI 198) to have order of merit cards

These 3 ewes received order of merit cards - JUB V15 is on the righthand side

The standard throughout the stock was very high - good conformation with a definite improvement in shape and handling
These combined with good skins, legs, feet, colour and mouths show the importance of this annual assessment.

Final results from the year 2006 lambs

Bleu du Maine breeding evaluation by the Chairman of Blue Sires
In comparison with other terminal sires with SRS, at 7 years the Bleu du Maine continues to perform outstandingly well still showing the best improvemrnt in Scheme Index and muscle EBV. In 2006 the index, now including another flock increased to 162. More importantly, the muscle EBV showed another good increase averaging 1.42mm with a maximum of 3.6mm. In 1999 there were only a handful of lambs recording over 30mm of muscle at 21 weeks; in 2006 there were well over 100 up to a maximum of 39.7mm.
Blue Sires continues to develop in line with the original objectives of improving the commercial qualities of the breed. This year it was decided to look at a Maternal Index to see if this would give a different approach to selecting females for the development programme. Using a standard index, this gave prominence to those ewes with good early growth, high muscle and maternal ability. Prolific animals were not ranked highly in this analysis.