Ille de France

I have added an article that I received from Mr. Bossie Clarke, an Ille de France breeder from Cape Town.

South African Ille de France

Performance Testing – A means to an end!

This article is an edited, translated extract from various articles that was published in the Landbou Weekblad ( a South African agriculture Magazine). The articles were written on results achieved on performance testing done by the National ARC – Agriculture Research Centre.

A group of farmers in South Africa have taken the normal obligatory PERFORMANCE TESTING through the ARC to another level and have achieved astonishing results.

(Normal obligatory Performance Testing requirements for the IDF (Ille de France) = the weighing of lambs at 42 and/or 100 days of age ( weaning).

Under the controlled supervition of the ARC for animal improvement in SA, these farmers have done a phase D testing of young rams ( IE Daily growth Rates (ADG) and Feed Conversion Rates ( FCR)( kg gain of body weight of kg dry feed consumed) – AFTER WEANING)

At Weaning the lambs from differant farmers are put on a maintenance diet for 14 days at a central venue – this is to level out differant feeding regimes at differant farms before weaning. They are then fed ad lib on the same commercially bought complete diet for 60 days.

The following results were obtained: