30 July 2005

It has been almost 6 months or so ( I thought it was a year at one point) I think since my last newsletter/ update, if you can call what I write as such, and I do feel a little slack in this regard, however newsletters in my opinion can be overdone a bit.  This was written before I realised I did one in December, did not check my archive newsletters did I before writing it, so some repetition, but hey it is all great reading. Any way here goes my ramble since last time

We had a pretty good lambing last year with weaning across all four breeds, plus the 1st cross cheviots, being around 150%.  The stud  Romneys did almost exactly 150%.  The hogget lambing was an experience, being our first time, they were exceptional mothers,  I stuffed up with the scanning of the hoggets, in that I just scanned in lamb and dry, without identifying twins, which I have of course not made the same mistake this year, the first 3 or 4 hoggets with singles had giant lambs, but after that it settled down.  Personally I would like to see a study undertaken that compares the lifetime productivity of a ewe that lambs for the first time as a hooget as opposed to a ewe that lambs for the first time as a 2th, I personally think the results could be quite surprising, however in the interim as a lot of our clients are doing so are we focusing on it.  This year we put the rams and ram lambs out with the hoggets for 30 days, and just over 75% scanned in lamb with just under 25% scanning twins. 

Our main mob ewes this year only scanned 165%, down about 20% on last year, which was pretty disappointing, but not totally unexpected, as I had three sires let me down, two romneys, one with an abscess, one whose $16500 libido was as good as it could have been perhaps, and another southdown who went to 90 southdowns and south suffolks who was pretty unreliable.  That is the problem with single sire mating, problems like this cost you money, no matter how vigilant you are,   I believe much of the drop was attributable to the southdown, as I do not recall the last time I had so many southdowns and south suffolks scanned with singles, normally they are quite rare.

Spring last year was a bit slow, but then as you all probably know the season in canterbury was very wet with grass growing galore, but not quality feed, long and rank, plenty of baleage made, but overall for us it was not a great season, despite the continuing rain.  Our farm is a wet farm at the best of times, in the short time we have been there, basically when we are irrigating is when the stock do really well.  Accordingly as we probably irrigated only for a total of 3 weeks, the stock grew, but it was a struggle to get them in good order.   I actually got 12 ewes blood tested in late January 05, becos despite all the feed, they just did not seem to be doing very well, and all 12 were "clinically deficient" in copper and selenium, which the vets allowed us to rectify for $3000.  I hope it is a one off at that cost. 

Last year the winter was really mild until beginning july, this year apart from a short spell in late may/ early june, the winter has just been amazing, grass growth, about 10days ago we finally had some rain, 35mm over three days.  All the stock are looking good, the only ones who could be better are my ewe hoggets, they are okay, but not exceptional, that is becos I got talked into locking a paddock of crusader for a second year as my winter feed, and while there is plenty of feed, it is a crap quality, I certainly wont do that again, but unfortunately in the interim the ewe hoggets are paying for my ballsup.  The triticala was again bloody amazing, despite being bloody expensive to sow.  As at mating time, basically every paddock on the farm has sheep in it, and accordingly despite the fact the ewes are single mated for 18-19 days, the feed just disappears at hundred miles an hour, so the triti does a great job, becos when they are mobbed up after the first round and grazed on and off the triti, what growth we do get at the time of the year is able to be conserved and then later strip grazed with the ewes.

As most of you probably know we keep basically all our lambs through to late march early april, so we can get a 200 day weight for them.  This year we actually sold probably about half our reject lambs as stores in April as the money was better than works price, ridicolous I know!  We eye muscled scanned our ram lambs, that we winter through on 28 April 05, I want to do them around the 200 day weight, but just getting someone at that time has been the problem to date.  The average for the romneys was 15.94, have yet to work out the other breeds, the variation in measurement was less than last year, which is pleasing in terms of sire consistency.   In this area, saleable meat yeild to be precise, it is hoped that regional and national trials will be undertaken by Romney NZ in collaboration with LIncoln University to identify the top romney genetics in this regard, this will include progeny testing, CT scanning of sires, eye muscle scanning, we already have the protocols etc organised, we just need to confirm funding, which is in excess of $100000 a year, and then hey presto, well no, but it should assist in identiying the top geneitcs for this trait at least.

I have just visited an Alliance works to view their viascam, ie yeild grading machine, and it was impressive, I will utilise it myself to determine how a sire's culls, ie those that I will not keep, yeild, I may even do my own progeny testing, so if anyone is keen to be involved with this, give me a yell, as we maybe able to work something out that is beneficial to both of us.  Incidentally Alliance advised us that farmers will be paid on yeild in 2006, no exceptions, which is interesting given the talk over the years about this.

In terms of last years ram sales, we probably sold a similarly number of rams, but averaged considerably more.   In the Romneys, we took 12 rams to the Feilding Stud Fair, ( this being the largest offering put forward by any one vendor) and averaged $2090 for the 12. We sold one to uruguay for $5200, one to the states for $4000, another to Richard Brown and Peter Mickleson (both members of Trigg) for $3000, our lowest price was a $1000, so it was a pretty pleasing sale.   At the gore stud fair we took 8 and averaged $1000, not as good as feilding, but still a pretty good stud season, considering we sold 20 rams of which around 14 were sold as studs to other breeders of rams, so a fair bit of waidale blood is getting around.  Still on the Romneys we took our normal tally of 20 romney rams to the gore flock fair in January 2005 and achieved the top average of just over $700, again pretty pleasing for a sale that has been bloody hard work in the past, (incidentally we sold 19 of the 20 at that sale).

With the Southdowns we ended up selling 4 stud rams, but only for an average of about $1200, pretty disappointing as I had a bloody good bugger (which eveyone says don't they, but he was good) which I cut the throat of, then another bugger which I thought was pretty good, died of Pulpey Kidney or something like that in December 04, a bummer to say the least.  However I do believe at this point that I have six bloody good southdown ram hoggets this year, so hopefully this will be the year for selling stud piggys.  If you interested come and have a look.

Flock sales were good,  with good demand for all breeds, so if anyone is interested in buying waidale rams of any breed, and you are not buying them already, it pays to get in early, as I dont like to say I have not got anything left, but it does happen. I have just had a farmer come down from Dannevirke to look around the farm, see all ewes, hoggets etc to see if he wanted to purchase romneys rams off me, it would be great if all farmers did this, as it is the best way to see where the breeder is going,   This Farmer in question had been buying his rams off Ian Grant for the last 30 years  (who impressed me with what he told me about his operation, I hope to get up to see it myself sometime soon), and since Mr Grant is no longer with us and as such breeding sheep, he has been looking for  a new supplier and I believe he was fairly impressed with what he saw at Waidale and intends to buy rams this season from us.  This may seem an expensive over the top exercise, but it is not, to me it is extremely prudent and wise thing to do when one considers the influence a ram can have on your flock, so if there is anyone reading this who wants to do the same, please feel free to contact me, you may not like what you see, but at least you will know, be careful if you leave till september though, as you might have to help me with lambing.  Please note we will have southdown, southdown south suffolk, south suffolk, romney, lincoln and 1st cross perendale rams for sale this coming year, note we will have some 2th first cross perendales not just ram lambs.

You may recall from my last letter that we were going to undertake DNA testing of our sires for footrot tolerance, which have now done.  The results for the Romneys were pretty good, with most rams ranging from a  1,1 (the best) to a 1,5, which is not the worst, the worst is a 5,5. The worst romney was one I bought last year at 3,4, but hopefully the right sort of mating will ensure that this is not a major problem.  The Lincolns were almost all 1,1, except for one bloody 2th who was a 5,5, so he will not be used much. I have not got the results back on my new terminal sires yet, but I know one old sire was a 3, 4, which I suspect may be pretty common for terminals given they do have more foot problems.   

Just on this point, please be clear that I do not claim to be footrot free, but I do cull for it, and as you can see I am DNA testing for it.  I ensure all my rams are sound when they leave waidale, but I do not claim they come from a footrot free farm.  I say this becos last year an agent came and picked 6 southdown rams, of which none were lame when he picked them, none were a lame when they went on the truck and none were lame when the station returned the buggers for having scold, of which none did, but one could have  a few weeks earlier. I have yet to get the bottom of this but I suspect that I was represented as footrot free, not by me, which is why the rams were returned, which as you can apprecate annoys me immensely, becos I pride myself on my honesty, and if what I suspect is correct then that station probably thinks I am bulshitting bugger, which is why reiterate this point now.  I also would point out that you need to buy rams from a place that has footrot, as opposed to quarantine farming, so that you are in fact obtaining footrot tolerant sheep, and not quaratined sheep that will pack it in the first time there is a stuff up and footrot gets on to the farm somehow, this is not just me saying this ask Dr Jon Hickford, one of the scientists behind the test at lincoln. 

In terms of the sires I used this year, the following are the 2th romney sires I used this year, I have yet to get a photo of the southdowns and southsuffolk 2ths, becos they were bought in partnership, and straight into the work when I received them.

Not bad set of 2th sires even if I do say so myself,  all have good eye muscle scans, good on their legs, good hindquarters, good wool and good fertilty, the top right being exceptional in fertility, this ram was purchased for $16500, of which a third is ours, he is good sheep with exceptional figures,  he is a twin, but all dams and grandams have only had triplets or quads. But of course the proof in the pudding is their progeny, which is what makes lambing time great for someone like me, I hate as it is so intense for 2-3 weeks, but it is great to see those new lambs and see who they are by.

What else:  I recently went to a drench resistance meeting and listened to Agresearch leading scientist.  It was certainly worthwhile, to the point that I have already changed my drenching pratice, he advocated 28 days and not feacal egg counting for drenching.  Also it seems that refugia is mandatory, that is you need to ensure that you have a number of sheep undrenched so that their eggs can multiply with any resistant ones and as such slow down the process of resistance.  As a result of this meeting I have decided to not prelamb drench the ewes this year, so time will tell if I am having to muck around drenching ewes at tailing time or whether I get away with it, but it will make things easier in terms of resistance, as I will rotate those ewes over all paddocks which is apparently vital and a good way of slowing down resistance.  The other thing was that if you are practicing this "refugia" then you should be using a three in one drench, as that is the slowest way of slowing up resistance.

The only other thing I can think of interest is fertiliser, it looks like I might put some fine particle fertiliser with trace elements via mainland minerals, some foliar feed, some clovertone (again liquid) and some compost tea, and some super from Ravensdown with some trace elements, a real licorice allsort plan.  I just think that with our farm, it has got a great fertiliser history, ph's of 6-6.5, Ps of 28-40, etc, that there must be something different I can do that is better than simply chucking on a 180kgs of super on as a maintenance, perhaps a mixture of all these things is what I need, If anyone has got any suggestions I am more than willing to hear them.

Well that brings it to an end, to my clients getting this newsletter, I hope you have a great lambing and the waidale rams have done a superb job for you, and to those of you who are not waidale clients, I hope you have a reasonable lambing, but not so good that you dont consider buying some waidale rams this coming year.

18 December 2004

This years lambing:

Well another lambing down.  Like most of us I am absolutely delighted that lambing has come and gone.  While I always look forward to seeing the progeny of our sires and particulary the first time sires, I do get bloody sick of it. Most of our ewes (perhaps 85% ) lamb within two weeks, which is good, it does make it  hectic, particularly if the weather is crap.  The weather this year for us was pretty amazing, we were always receiving forecasts of rain, but not often getting them.  Up until 3 weeks I thought I may have to start irrigating in the first week of October, but thankfully we have had a stack of rain.   Back to the lambing, we did have a good lambing, and I believe we will wean around 150% across all breeds.   However it could have been better, as while we got smacked with salmonella last year, (nothing this year) it seems we had bit of campo and/or toxo, which meant that instead of having the best lambing ever, given the weather, we did have a few abortions and dead multiples (ie one live lamb and two rotten triplet siblings).  Which means I will probably have to decide wether I start vaccinating for it or not.   Got a few months to think about it.

The above paragraph was written months ago, but owing to a lack of time, I have not got back to it.  I have just come back from Feilding Stud Fair, where I took 12 Romneys, which was the largest number offered by any breeder.  Thankfully I can say that the sale went well and particularly well for us, in that we sold 11 of the 12 for an average of $2090.  We sold two for export, one to Uruguay and one to USA.   If you want to see the rams and where they went and how much for have a look under Stud Sales on our website.   I think we will be second in the averages or close to it, which is pretty good considering that most other breeders only enter 2 to 6 rams.  I would like to think that our sale was an endorsement of what we are trying to do, namely blending good old fashion stockmanship (in terms of ensuring our sheep have the  quality, the basics in terms of feet, constitution etc) with the performance recording data, so that as the intro to my website saids we not only have sheep that look the part, but they are the part and perform accordingly.   I do think we need to make sure that whatever performance recording systems and data we use, that we use it as a tool and not take it as Gospel, because if one does without ensuring the animal is sound and has the necessary quality, then II firmly believe that over time any gains in productivity will be short term, and in fact productivity over the long haul could well decrease.  A simplistic example of what I mean, is many years ago, perhaps 20, a trial was undertaken where wool weight was the sole determinant of what animals were retained, ie the quality characteristics of the wool were totally ignored.  To cut a long story short, there were initially significant gains in wool weight, however in the long term there were worse off than at the beginning, because the wool became long stapled, open, hairy britchy type wool, which not only was cutting less, but was not desireable in terms of the market.  All quality characteristics that a good stockman looks for are not as some say, simply breed points, as almost all are premised on some productivity characteristic.  Eg bad pastons, cant walk, cant eat, etc, poor colour more likelihood of black in wool, poor shoulders more lambing problems, narrow arse, less meat and more lambing problems and so on.

This is Waidale 462-03 who was sold for export to Uruguay for $5200.  The photo does not actually do him justice.

He is by Waidale 97-01 who is the sire of our number one keeper, I1182-03: Picture below:

Just before I finish my rant on performance data, if anyone knows a budding graduate who is looking to do a PHD, then I would be keen to talk with that person about the possiblity of doing a critique on the SIL performance recording system, as I believe there are some serious issues with the system that need addressing and a student via a detailed critique and perhaps some sort of trials to assist with the critique, could be invaluable to us as breeders and in turn all farmers.  Please get in touch with me, or put that person in touch with me.

In terms of the weather, we have had stacks of rain, I have not had to irrigate at all yet, and will not have to at least until January 2005.  However while it is good to have rain from the sky, I dont believe our stock are doing as well as they could do, just not hard quality feed, cold and a lack of clover, we need sun.  The stock, like me I think are sick of the cold, the rain and the bloody mud.  We have actually started to lose some lambs and ewes due to the what the vet has diagnosed as being a B1 deficiency,  which has been exacerbated by the cold wet weather, it is always some bloody thing isnt it.

I have just weaned and hoped to shear the lambs before christmas, but it looks like I will only get the ewes done.   The yards are such a bloody mess, I probably wont be able to weigh the lambs until January.  I like to, if I have the time, to sort my lambs into sire groups just after weaning, as by doing this, you get a good idea as to how the sire is breeding as a line, and not just the best one and or the culls.  Hopefully the weather will improve and they yards, so I can get all of this done, before all the ram fairs in January:Three Stud Fairs in Christchurch, 12,13, 14 of January, Gore Stud Fair the 18th I think and then the Gore Flock Fair on the 21st of January.  Not much on the farm will get done over that period.  I am taking 5 Southdowns to the Christchurch Stud Fair, 8 Romneys to the Gore Stud Fair, and 20 Romneys to the Gore Flock Fair.  Photos of the rams going to the Stud Fairs will hopefully be up on our website prior to Christmas and you never know I might even get photos of the Gore Flock Fair rams up.

In terms of rams, I have been selling rams since early November, there is always a few guys who like to get them then, which is early for the South Island.  However I believe that November is a good time to get your rams,  as the earlier you can get the rams, the earlier the rams can acclimatise to your country, your terrain and your feed several months prior to putting them out at tupping time.  I am confident our rams will shift and handle all types of terrain and climate, but the chances that a ram wont do this are  increased the closer it is left to select that ram prior to mating.  Some clients come and pick their rams, take them home and put them straight out with the ewes (and of course they have not even been shorn), which quite frankly is not a good idea if you can avoid it..  I shear our rams in late January early February to go out with the ewes Mid April.

I still have some good rams (I mean good rams, not dregs) available in all breeds, namely Romneys, Southdowns, Southdown/South Suffolk cross, Lincolns and 1st cross perendale ram lambs (this being a cheviot Romney cross).  Those clients who have come to buy our Southdown/South Suffolk cross rams, they have to a person, being blown away on how good they are, they are basically as big as our South Suffolks, but a lot meatier.  So if anyone is interested in any breed, then give us a yell, if you dont have not the time to come and have a look, give me a ring, tell me what you want, and I will pick one for you, just one, so you can they run your own wee trial to see whether it is worth getting all your rams from us next year.  Remember,  I believe the number one criteria to satisfy yourself when deciding to buy your rams, is whether  the breeder is honest, straight up and not peddling some marketing crap, If you are satisfied that your breeder is this, then you can have some confidence in what that breeder says about their rams.   Selling rams today is not the old days of word of mouth, the big corporate breeders have full time marketing managers and spend hundreds of thousands on advertising etc, it is just like buying a Car now, you have to determine what is sales pitch and what is real.

Well I will finish now, without too many raves about things that are currently annoying me.  I hope you all have a good christmas and new year and  the weather treats us all well.   I'll be in touch sometime early next year.

Up until the end of June 2004 life was a cruise on the farm in terms of feed, (at that stage I was even considering getting in some grazers).  However thankfully I did not get any, as since June, the frosts have set in with some being colder than they have recorded for many a year down here in Canterbury.  There has also a reasonable amount of rain (nothing like what some of you poor buggers up north have had to put up with) and even some snow in the last week or so.   The flats on Waidale are heavy and ideally we only want 20ml of rain at a time, anything more and just Mud.  This time of the year, you have to keep telling yourself, what everyone tells you, namely " Mud is money", because quite frankly I have had a gutsful of the mud, the sooner the spring comes, and lambing has been and gone, the better.  However in saying that it is amazing how things change with a bit of good weather, Sunday week ago, I was shifting the breaks on a nice sunny day, and it was an absolute pleasure, for both me and the stock!.  Been bloody cold this last week though.

If you have visited our website recently,  you will have note that we scanned 175% for all four breeds, which is above average for the region, but not as good as I had hoped for, but then it never is, is it!!!!.   Having regard to the fact that the lincolns are not as prolific as the other breeds, I would estimate that the others would be 185% or better.  Scanning to me is not overly significant, as the proof in the pudding, is the weaning percentage, which better be 150 or better for all breeds or I will be disappointed,  (at this point, it appears we wont be hit by salmonella this year).    A scanning percentage of around 200%, but weaning of 120% as I have been told some farmers who have changed to composites, is not overly profitable.

Our lambing is not meant to start until 15 September.   However they always seem to start earlier.  I recently visited another farmers property in the district who is primarily a commercial farmer, but he also has a Romney stud.  It was an impressive farm, I think he runs around 5000 commercial romney ewes, and well run.    However the most significant thing that struck me was the condition his ewes were in, all his ewes, not just his studs.  They were in much, much better condition that ours, so much so, that I was concerned about the condition of our ewes when I returned.   On reflection though, while I have probably worked my ewes a little bit hard,  I believe that as a stud breeder, I have to make sure that they work to ensure our flocks have the necessay hardiness and constitution that translate into waidale rams being able to shift and adapt to varying terrains and climatic conditions in New Zealand.  When you are in the business of selling rams, as we solely are, you cannot make your ram hoggets that you intend to sell, work over the winter, as you simply wont sell them come ram selling season, (in any event I believe if grow young stock well, that your reap the rewards from them in their adult life).  I hope I am doing the right thing, because my ewes are considerably lighter than the neighbour I recently visited.

The other interesting thing to me that came out of this visit was how many breeders claim that they are breeding rams under commercial conditions and yet quite clearly from my recent visit, while our farm comprises solely of stud ewes, they are obviously working a lot harder than a lot of commercial ewes about the place.  In otherwords, there are some breeders where I would question the relevance of such statement, as from my experience my ewes would work harder than some breeders who make such a statement, I believe it is often used as a basis as to why they are selling small rams.   In an ideal world, you should visit the breeders farm, see how it is run, look at all their stock and ask a stack of questions to see if they are straight up and honest with what they claim, or whether it is just marketing crap!!!!

Only about two weeks ago, did we separate out the twin scanning ewes from the singles.  I should have done it a month ago.  (I  note some people separate them out at scanning time, I might try that next year to see if it is worth it, even though it means twice as many bloody breaks).  However I would have done it earlier, if I was desperate for feed, but while we don't have tonnes of spare feed, we have sufficient, so I delayed separation primarily because I did not  have the time to shift twice as many breaks with daily strip grazing.  I expect to set stock them about the 6^th or 7^th of September.  Around the end of this month I will give the ewes Ivomec boluses, 5 in One, and an oral shot of Iodine and selenium.  I gave the ewes an oral shot of cobalt/iodine and selenium, pretup, whether it was any benefit or not, I don't know.  There are so many products being pushed these days, "LSD" for instance.  I have consulted a number of vets about the benefits or otherwise of using these various supplements and the general concensus is that they are a very expensive way of providing your stock with a lot of minerals, of which it is likely the stock are not deficient in the majority of.  They suggest that I take blood tests, liver tests etc, if I think there is something lacking (I have no reason to believe that anything is at the moment).  I will give the ewes  the oral supplement of Iodine and selenium, as it only costs about 5 cents a ewe, so a blanket shot can't hurt.   We do try to ensure that our ewes while pregnant have continous access to salt/mineral blocks.  However, if anyone is using one of these supplements and getting great results, please let me know.

I had thought that this winter would be quite laid back, (now that I am generally not playing solicitors part time as well as running the farm).  However I have been pretty flat out, as I have continued to subdivide a number of paddocks with Kiwitech 5 wire electric fences. (Only another coupler fences to go now).  Some people don't like these type of fences, but we have been using them for close on 15 years and our stock are pretty used to them.  The cost is the big advantage, about a dollar a meter, which is bloody cheap compared to the cost of a traditional permanent fence.  With a bit of luck I will get the troughs in for those paddocks prior to lambing (waiting of bulldozer to drag the pipe in).

Also instead of getting a contractor in to put the super on, we bought a fertiliser/urea spreader to go on the back of the four wheeler bike (It is a Eurospreader with tandem oscillating wheels that holds just under 500kg of super).  If anyone is considering getting one of these, the reason I went for the Eurospreader, was because of the model with the tandem wheels.  I found from those that I tried that it was much easier on the bike to tow the Eurospreader, simply because of the oscillating tandem wheels.  To date I have put on about 20 tonne of super with it.  I am about to put some urea on the older pastures on the hill and the two paddocks of crusader and moata (which I have just about finished break feeding with the hoggets), so hopefully the spreader should have paid for itself in the first year.  Instead of the bags, I built three boxes, one to go on the hilux, two on the trailer, and I can get just under two tonne at a time from Ravensdown and then use the loader to lift them up and fill the spreader.  The only thing you have to put up with is looking like a dork when I line up behind these big truck and trailer units at ravensdown to collect my two tonne, however I am getting used to it now.

I also decided this year that I would shear my own hoggets.  I have just finished shearing the ewe hoggets.  All  I have got left is to shear the Southdown and South Suffolk ram hoggets, they don't get shorn until the first week in October.  Shearing the hoggets obviously saves us money, but it does take time when you are not that quick and still have the everyday jobs to do.  I bought one of those shearing harnesses (the half hoop one), which is really amazing, certainly makes it a lot easier on the body.  Thankfully I got the ewe hoggets finished this week, as it seemed the weather was never going to let me finish them.  The ewe hoggets are supposed to start lambing on the second of October.

In regards to our rams, I am pretty pleased with the quality of our ram hoggets this year, that is with all breeds.  The Romneys averaged 5.63kg for 30 weeks.  Some of the best cut in excess of 7.0kg.  For those who may not have read the info on our website about our South Suffolks, the last two years I put a very good Southdown ram over the South Suffolk ewes and the progeny are quite simply amazing, their muscling, spring of rib is quite incredible.  The ewe hoggets from this cross, this year I put back to South Suffolk, so I am looking forward to seeing their offspring.  I am only putting one cross of Southdown through the flock, the ewe hoggets progeny, I will then get inspected by the Society and they will then be deemed South Suffolks again.  The South Suffolk, I believe is a good terminal sire, but the one cross of Southdown should just give it a bit more muscling and bone (I am a big fan of bone as in my opinion bone usually goes hand in hand with constitution).  Below is some photos of this years ram hoggets:

    

    

You will note the snow, we have had a fall this winter over the whole farm, but thankfully it was gone in a coupler days, it looks nice, but really it is a pain in the butt as anyone knows who is used to farming in it every winter.  I don't know if I could put up with it on a regular basis.  The photo below is of a mob of ewes on the hill which shows how much was around on the hills in the recent fall.  As you can see it was not a lot;

I have just been to Dunedin  to get some training from Dr Sheryl-Anne Newman of Invermay on SIL and as a consequence I now have the ability to upload data and print out my own reports, which will be interesting and hopefully of assistance to our clients.  I now (after a bit of practice) will have the ability to actually prepare a tailor made report for a client in terms of what they may want to place emphasis on (so long as they give me sufficient notice to do it, a coupler days will hopefully be enough usually).  So if there are any requests, get them to me as soon as possible.

All ram hoggets this year will have the following performance data available if required by a client, subject to coupler software updates I am still waiting on, all of the following will be on the pocket PC:

• SIL data including the following EBV's: EBV,  NLBBV, SURVBV, WWTBV, LW8BV, EMABV, FW12BV (wool breeds of course) and the overall DPO (a SIL sire summary in paper form will also be available if sought); and
• Actual weaning weights and 200 day weights; and
• Actual eye muscle area as scanned in May 2004; and
• Actual Fertility (ie dams number of lambs); and
• Pedigree ie sire and dam.

The last one is very important as there are some breeders (who sell large numbers) who are screening ram lambs from their clients, who then get meaningless SIL figures for them and then sell them with all the marketing crap to farmers.  I say meaningless as it is the pedigree ie actual sire and dam that gives substance to the SIL figures, if you don't have an accurate pedigree for the ram in question and corresponding background performance, then your SIL figures are in reality not worth the paper they are written on, the actual weights etc are probably a better guide.  Rams that have SIL figures based on a coupler weighings and fleece weight, defeats the intention of what SIL was set up to do, which in theory was to give you a reasonable guide of the genetic merit of the animal by factoring in the performance of siblings, dams, sires etc.

Finally, just to advise that the only new thing on the horizon for us at this stage is that we intend to undertake DNA testing of my sires in regards to footrot tolerance.  It is tolerance, not resistance, as Dr Hickford of Lincoln explained recently at a meeting I attended, even a 1:1 (which is the best, 5:5 being the worst) will still get footrot, which is not quite how some people have marketed it.  I expect this to be a long term project, over say 10 years ,as it is quite simply cost prohibitive to test all the ewes.  Hopefully Romney New Zealand will initiate something with Meat and Wool which will result in DNA testing for footrot tolerance being a lot cheaper, because of the numbers involved.  Heres hoping

5 July 2004:

This is officially the first update on the farm.  For those who do not live in Canterbury, for my part, the winter has not come,  it has been extremely mild with the grass still growing.   The best evidence of this would be the Triticala that I again break fed the ewes on this year from 5 May (and they still going).  We always back fence it every 3 to 5 days and last year there was no sign of any greening up after about the first week in June, however this year it is still going.  At the moment, because of the mild winter and because i made an error in my calculations of green feed for the winter (after redesigning, subdividing and refencing paddocks) I have got stacks of feed, which I am not sure what to do with it.  Buying any form stock at the moment is not that economic given the high prices, so I am considering taking some grazing, but I still very conscious of the fact that it is still a coupler months untill lambing and the cold may come!

We just scanned all the ewes on the weekend.   The overall figure was 175% on ewes mated.  That figure is across all breeds, namely the Southdowns, Lincolns, South Suffolks and Romneys.   I don't draft them up to scan, so I don't have individual breakdowns for each breed.  I will know soon enough at lambing time.  However given that the lincolns are the least fertile of the four breeds, I would expect the other breeds are a bit higher than 175%.   I guess its okay, but I was hoping to hit around 190 across the board, but next year!   Our ewe hoggets I did mate this year for 17 days only, which was probably a half round to little.  I only scanned whether they were in lamb in not and 50% were.

For those interested we had 2.5% dry, (included couple of resorption ewes).  I point this out because last year we were hit badly with Salmonella Brandenberg and a lot of people said to get rid of them, there was so many I didnt get rid of the lot.  I have not yet had the time to go through these drys to see how many were affected by salmonella last year, I know there are some in there, but it will be interesting to see how many as some vets advised that a lot of the ewes that get it there uterus is just stuffed, so once I have had the opportunity I will let know how many are in this category, as when you are affected by it, it is very difficult to get any consistent reliable advice as to what you should do, it is at best "a best guess"I found last year. I have now been throught them and only 6 had aborted lambs last year.  Of all the ewes last year, I kept those that look fit and healthy, which appeared to be no longer affected by Salmonella, possibly about 25, 30 ewes (I kept), which would suggest that not all who abort, will not get back in lamb as some have suggested.

We are shearing hopefully this week, which is a bit of a bugger as I tried to get it done prior to scanning, but as I have not, I have got a bit drafting to do and then remarking afterwards.

Tomorrow is the Canterbury Romney Breeders club Agm, with the new General Manager being there.  For those of you who do not know, I was elected by default to the Romney Council this May (ie no one else stood) and as such I am very interested on everyones views as to where we should be going.   I believe that something has to be done, but not at the expense of members.   The pressing issues are of course:

what, how and where we should be going, which can be resolved without too much difficulty PERHAPS

how will it be funded, this is considerably more contentious and could lead to drastic loss of members;

Should SIL be compulsory, this again is contentious. My own personal view is probably the minority here, namely no, as I dont like being told what to do.  However the difficulty is that SIL is taking a life of its own now and it is getting to a point of critical mass, whereby people may have to be on it, to be in the market place.  When a decision is made on this and the other issues, I hope that a very informative letter will advise all members of what is happeing, what options there are, so each and every member can make a reasoned decision about what they should do.

My own personal view is that the General Manager does have some good ideas and if they work, great!  However I believe that the majority of what we do (for the first year or two) at least should be funded out of reserves, because if it does not work then there is no point being a member.

I would ask those members who are somewhat disillusioned with the whole thing to go to their local club meeting and meet Shane McManaway and put him and councillors (including myself if I am there) on the spot as to your concerns and how can they be allayed.  If you are one who is considering resigning I ask  you to withhold from making such a decision until Shane has travelled the length of the Country and another council meeting has taken place.  We do not want to lose any members if it can be avoided.