[Anke]

Anyone on here member of the above - either for sheep and/or goats (preferably both).

I am thinking (very early stages - currently ploughing my way through guidance notes) of joining, but no decisions yet.

Any clear disadvantages (other than cost), any clear advantages (other than ability to export)?

I would probably have to get rid of my current sheep flock, but as I am considering changing my sheep side of things anyway, this may not be as catastrophic as it sounds... Goats seem to be a bit more straightforward...

[Talana]

Only advantage I see is to export. We used to be in it years ago when we had pedigree charollais sheep. In recent years rules have been tightned up. With the goats can be hugely restrictive as it's the minority that are in the scheme many people have come out of it when extra rules came in on males. Can only attend shows in summer between certain dates I think September the cut off ?-so late shows you may not be able to attend Can only use scapie monitored males and contact with scrapie monitored herd.I am pretty sure this includes semen from AI but not 100% on that. The sheep are easier as you can genotype them  you want ARR/ ARR you have to cull the ones that are not in the specified range. Some breeds have a lower threshold as the prefered genotype in that breed doesn't exist. There has been research on genotyping goats- I had mine done unfortunately they were all QQ  and they want KK or QK I think a commercial herd of thousands of goats did it and only found 1 with the preferred gene. Haven't heard anymore about the research.