2018

For several decades the International Institute for Livestock Research (ILRI) has run a commercial cross-breeding programme for Red Maasai and Dorper sheep at Kapiti Ranch which is near Nairobi Kenya. In May 2018 Emily Clark was lucky enough to visit the station, with Dr Karen Marshall from ILRI, and Drs Musa Hassan and Christelle Robert from the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health. 

The visit took place during lambing season which meant there were lambs in the station to see and we were shown many interesting things about their routine husbandry, record keeping, disease susceptibility, management, interventions and breed improvement. These were all really impressive and it was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the flock at Kapiti for future collaborative research projects.

In September 2018 Emily Clark travelled to Naivasha Kenya for the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health (CTLGH) Annual Meeting. The meeting included several hundred delegates from across the globe. Emily presented the small ruminant functional genomics work currently being undertaken in CTLGH and led a session looking at barriers for the development of community based breeding programmes for small ruminants in the tropics. The session included speakers from Ethiopia, India, the USA and the UK. It was an excellent session with lots of productive discussion.

The meeting itself was a great experience and included the opportunity to see giraffe on the banks of Lake Naivasha, can you spot the calf in the photo below??