National Sheep improvement program webinars set

The North Dakota State University Extension Service is organizing a webinar series in May and June on the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP).

The NSIP is a quantitative genetic selection tool designed to help sheep and goat producers make good breeding decisions, according to NDSU Extension sheep specialist Reid Redden, who is organizing the webinars.

All of the webinars will start at 8 p.m. EDT and last about an hour.

Dates, topics and speakers for the webinars are:

May 1 – How the sheep industry can benefit from the NSIP, Robert Banks, director of the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit at the University of New England, Australia

May 8 – How the goat industry can benefit from the NSIP, Ken Andries, animal scientist at Kentucky State University

May 15 – How, when and what data to collect, Cody Hiemke, NSIP vice chairman

May 22 – Challenges of moving to a performance-tested flock, Bill Shultz, owner and operator of Bunker Hill Farm, DeGraff, Ohio

May 29 – How to enter and submit data, Christopher Schauer, director of NDSU’s Hettinger Research Extension Center

June 5 – How to use the data, producer panel

Susan Schoenian of the University of Maryland will host the webinars.

To preregister for one or more of the seminars, send an email to pthomas@umd.edu. Those who register will receive login information via email.

Contact Redden at (701) 231-5597 or reid.redden@ndsu.edu for more information about the webinars.