Research looking at ways of breeding sheep and goats to cope with climate change has found significant variations in how individual animals respond to fluctuating weather conditions.

The same weather change invoked a variety of responses in different animals, while the production of some was not affected at all – making them more resilient to climate change.

With a significant proportion of the observed variation being genetic and heritable, we concluded that animal resilience to weather change could be improved through selective breeding.

This will enable us to continue selectively breeding for enhanced performance – such as high production and health – and at the same time breed for performance stability when external environmental conditions change.