Lamb producers in the Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) of the European Community appear, for different reasons, to be constrained by the economic value of the indigenous small-sized sheep breeds. The trial reported here forms part of a collaborative project whose overall aim is to improve the quality and marketability of sheep meat produced in the LFAs. The objective of this trial was to assess the growth potential of nine small sized sheep breeds, across three centres, providing a basis for subsequent production work. The three collaborating centres in Greece (paper no. 112), Spain (paper no. 26) and Scotland used indigenous breeds appropriate to their LFAs. The three British breeds studied were Scottish Blackface (SB), Welsh Mountain (WM), and Shetland (SH).