Performance Guarantee and Certified Animals
The ASSAF.E Union is based in Zamora, North Spain and includes 140 dairy farms and 110.000 animals.
The majority of the Spanish population is found in Castile and León, where they represent 65-70% of the overall milking sheep, in particular in the prefectures with the highest milk production.
The vets of the union perform continuous tests on the animals that belong to the union in order to check their health and their milk production.
This way, the union can guarantee and certify the productivity and the health of the animals, which can be bought from these specific farms by any stockbreeder at any given time.
The sheep have a remarkably high milk performance, while the average milking period is 210 days, which can even be exceeded with a proper milking system. The average milk production that has been certified through official inspections during 150 days of milking is 350 litres (2.2 litres per day) with an average fat content of 6.2%, protein content of 5.3% and dry matter of 16.8%.
Assaf. e applies a genetic selection programme which is based on a Selection Core that consists of the registered dairy farms. The selection process aims at maintaining the breed standards and increasing the production and the quality of milk through the genetic evaluation of the parents and the tests conducted on males that have offspring with a DNA certification; these tests take place in the Molecular Genetics Lab Xenetica Fontao (Lugo). In November 2009, the first catalogue regarding the genetic evaluation of the parents of the Assaf. e breed was published. The parents breeding unit is located in the Centre for the Genetic Selection and Improvement of Sheep and Goats in Castile and León (Toro, Zamora), where doses of sperm undergo a certain process in order to be used in artificial insemination programmes.