Beef +Lamb New Zealand Sheep Focus Day
Manawatu Standard: Rural Diary 19 Jul 2011
July 27: Beef +Lamb New Zealand Sheep Focus Day At Holly Farm, 235 Galpins Rd, Marton, hosted by David and Maureen Smith, 10.30 am to 3.30 pm.
Crop Talk: H & T Agronomics representative Paul Oliver talks to farmers about hill-country cropping.
Speakers include Western North Island Beef + Lamb director Kirsten Bryant, Geoff Nicoll, who will talk on genetics at Landcorp and Martin Walshe, of the Hunterville Vet Club, who will discuss making money from triplet ewes, Ashley Cole, who will talk about bearings in sheep, and Paul Oliver, who will speak on regrassing.
Hunterville Vet Club’s veterinarian Martin Walshe doing a postmortem on a lamb at the Marton sheep focus day.
Beef and Lamb farm council member from the Raetihi area, Ashley Cole, was one of the speakers talking to about 80 farmers at a sheep focus day at Holly Farm at Marton. It was an update on the region’s farming conditions, sheep management, lamb survival, and getting the best out of the pasture.
Captive audience: Some of the 120 farmers at Holly Farm, north of Marton, at the Central Districts Sheep and Beef Council’s sheep focus day.
Onlooker. Photo credit: Warrick Smith
Dr Geoff Nicoll, head of the genetics unit at public farming giant Landcorp, spoke to a sheep focus day at Holly Farm near Marton about the use of ultrasound, CT scans and other methods to identify good breeding stock. Government scientists are urging farmers to use medical technologies to increase the yield of their stock and the quality of their meat.
Use of CT scans to provide detailed information about stock had increased the rate of genetic gain by up to 25 per cent, Dr Nicoll said.
‘‘[That is] the single biggest lift in rate of genetic gain I have ever seen.’’ did CT Scans on about 400 ram lambs each year
The most accurate measure of future lambs’ carcass traits was progeny testing, which earmarked a given ram and tested its offspring across multiple ewes to determine that ram’s suitability as breeding stock.
The technique was time-consuming and expensive.
But Dr Nicoll said even spending an extra $1000 per ram, the increased value of the lambs sired by a good breeding ram – an average gain of about $4.50 a head – would recoup the capital investment within a year.
‘‘Buying a sire is an exercise in profitable investment . . . it’s not a cost.’’
Good management, however, remained the key to allowing an animal to reach its genetic potential because for an animal to reach a higher yield it would have to be fed and cared for correctly, he said.
‘‘Putting them out and shutting the gate and forgetting about them isn’t going to work.’’
After 16 years’ work on increasing yields, Landcorp’s next priority would be monitoring and improving meat quality, Dr Nicoll said.
Landcorp recognised that the consumer was not interested in stock yields, but in the quality of the dining experience, he said.
