University of Nottingham is conducting along with the Roslin Institute (Edinburgh) an investigation into the genetics of trace element deficiency in sheep. This project is mostly supported by a grant from a leading Research Council in the UK (i.e. BBSRC), but also to an extent by EBLEX, HCC and AgriSearch in Northern Ireland. They have chosen to work with Texels in the first instance, not because they have a particular problem, but simply because they are the dominant breed within the UK, and are progressive in terms of their outlook and have pure animals in volume across the industry.
To date they have collected nasal swabs from 24 unrelated purebred Texels and have sequenced their DNA in an attempt to find relevant SNPs. We are now analysing these data.
The second phase of the project is to identify which of these SNPs are important in regulating the metabolic processes supported by specific trace elements – i.e. cobalt, sulphur, selenium and zinc. To do this they need to collect a small piece of liver (< 3 oz or around 80g) from a number of lambs, which they hope to achieve by following Texel lambs going down commercial slaughter lines. They require samples from around 300 lambs for this purpose – best if they come from a number of farms and/or a number of sires.
They are speaking to slaughter lines in Wales and Northern Ireland, but for convenience (and to give good geographic spread).
If any of you are slaughtering purebred Texel lambs in the next 4 to 6 weeks please contact Kevin at this email address (kevin.sinclair@nottingham.ac.uk) or at either of the two telephone numbers below. They just need around 24 h notice of when you plan to send these lambs so that we can be there on the day. This won’t cost you anything. They just work alongside the Meat Hygiene inspector and take a slither from the left lobe of the liver.
Many thanks for your assistance in this matter.
Kevin D Sinclair
University of Nottingham
Sutton Bonington
Leicestershire
LE12 5RD
TEL: ++ 44 (0)115 951 6053
Mobile: ++ 44 (0)7884 438538
Skype: kevin.sinclair95
