No they are not, at least I hope not, but hopefully this got your attention. I like most farmers have become incredibly disillusioned with the competency of our meat companies. Things have to change, but will they? I have had many private conversations with many farmers about the problems and what perhaps should be done, but I am not sure if this achieves anything. I believe we need to take the debate public and get everyone’s attention and input and perhaps again (MIAG) get momentum for change. If we keep going like we are with wildly fluctuating prices from year to year, sheep numbers will continue to decline, even though simply because of falling numbers I believe the prices will be better next year or the year after.
I have been a staunch supplier of alliance, I believe in loyalty, but after last year’s debacle, who are you to have any faith in? I went to some bank presentation towards the latter end of 2011, where a rural economist from wellington presented a graph showing how the price of lamb had increased at a rate very disproportionate to its substitute products like beef, chicken, pork etc: in other words you did not have to be a genius to realise the price was unsustainable, this was well before the new year of 2012. Surely a prudent well managed company would act conservative in the wake of such information; yet the meat companies continued to pay ridiculous money for lambs well into the New Year and even more ridiculous money for store lambs, these cooperatives are supposed to be acting in our best interests. The standard line we have been fed for the losses is the drop was so fast and so unexpected, but essentially they were caught with their pants down, should they have been, I don’t believe so (at least not all the way down) and have heads rolled over it, NO.
Lamb prices are and were particularly last year fuelled by procurement battles for the lambs from farmers between the companies, not by overseas market demand, we all know this. What business determines prices by procurement, surely its demand? If the meat companies kept out of the Store lamb market all together, then we may be getting paid more this year, as instead of all cooperative shareholders having to cover their losses by getting paid less for lambs, it would only be those farmers who bought lambs suffering now, not all of the shareholders. It’s still happening, a farmer told me recently if sells his own lambs to lamb plan, he reckons he will make around $10 a head more than keeping and killing them himself, that figure is probably increasing giving the rate the schedule is dropping, how farcical. Alliance is just as much to blame in this regard as their schedule is more based on what SFF pay than anything else. You even get an email these days from them that shows you if x% of lambs meat the yield requirements, then you will receive this amount, i.e. to essentially show you that their price is competitive with its main rival SFF. It’s not a yield premium at all; it sets its schedule to take account of what its average yield payment may be to ensure that their price is on a par with SFF.
Alliance this year announced its $20 upfront payment through the media, the first I knew about it was reading the farming magazines. Wouldn’t a well run company inform it shareholders first before the media, and in writing and in sufficient time to make an informed choice, not days before the cut off date to make the decision (when I received it), this again just smacks of incompetency.
I submitted a query in writing about some lines of lambs that were killed in January and February last year, to date I have had no response at all, what sort of company treats a shareholder like this, an incompetent one I would suggest. I can single out Alliance as I have been dealing with them, but I doubt if the others are any better.
All of the above are simply signs of poorly run businesses. I have a lot more to say, but limited copy space precludes me from elaborating on it now. Note I wrote this to go in local farmer periodical.
Waidale is a specialist Stud sheep which is now share farmed with James and Maria Hoban, at Glenafric Farm 1306 Mt Cass Road Waipara. They do al the day to day work, but I am still in control of mating, culling, breeding philosophy etc, We are still focused on breeding on top Romney, Southdown and South Suffolk rams!. Grunty meaty rams with fertility and wool in case of the romneys, dont take my word come and have a look for yourself. Our website is www.waidalerams.co.nz
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Waidalerams Newsletter August 2012
It’s that time again, well a bit earlier as I am hoping to get this out by the end of this month. Our last 18 months (until the beginning of August) has just been amazing, hardly had to irrigate for two summers, regularly rain, grass growing (occasionally a little dry). If I farm for another 20 years I somewhat doubt we’ll have another run like that. However 1 August, it literally wet itself; on our place we had about 15 inches in 15 days, some areas a few kms away 18 plus inches in same time. Just a bloody nightmare, never seen it so wet, had to spread the ewes out early just to avoid sleepy sickness, as breaks just turn into mud in minutes. Only good thing is I am losing some guts by having to walk up and down hills in the mud to shift breaks. My hoggets were looking amazing, the ewe hoggets and terminal ram hoggets are now brown with massive mud dags, and they have just had a gutful of mud and rain. Fortunately got Romneys shorn, bit late but done and they look good. Hopefully it’s over and things dry up and the amazing waidalerams will not only be the part but also look the goods as well come November!!!!!
Our Fourth On Farm Sale will be at 3pm on Wednesday 28 November 2012 with around 160 plus Rams being put up for sale: approximately 60 Romneys, 50 Southdowns, 50 South Suffolks, half dozen Suftex rams and perhaps a Lincoln or two. I believe that quality wise they will be the best I have put up to date: Romneys are again very good; consistent type, good wool and good fertility. The Southdowns should be the best line-up I have offered for sale for a few years, (I had two sires that bred well in the same season, who would have thought!!). South Suffolks again good meaty terminal sires. For those who haven’t attended my sale before, I do hope you can find the time and the inclination to come and have a look and if nothing else have a beer and sausage on me, the more the merrier.
One thing I would add, in my opinion naturally, is that you will struggle to find a line of rams with consistently better hindquarters than what I have got, that’s in all my breeds, it’s because I do place a lot of emphasis on this. The only way to achieve it is through stockmanship, there is no reliable statistic, breeding value or measurement that tells you if a ram has got a good hindquarter, it comes down to assessing by eye, the length, width, carry out and depth and then breeding for it, yes stockmanship, which as I have stated before is sadly lacking with some breeders these days!!! If the meat companies ever legitimately (as opposed to saying they do) get around to paying a real premium for meat yield, hindquarter will be a big part of it, given it’s a substantial part of the carcass and the second most expensive cut (behind the loin).
On Line Sale: Our Helmsman sale will be run in conjunction with AgOnline for the third straight year. Last year we sold 12 rams online as opposed to one the year before. It is certainly something that is growing and gaining credibility with an increasing number of farmers. Not only by those who cannot make it to the sale and decide to select their rams from the videos etc or alternatively those who look at the rams prior to the sale and then bid from home, but also those who do attend sale day, as some are doing their homework prior to the sale by looking at the videos and data and narrowing it down to those they want to look at on the day. All the performance data (including hopefully this year the weight of the ram around the time of videoing to give you a rough comparative gauge of his size) and 20 second videos (it should be high definition this year) of each ram will be On Line for viewing about 3 weeks prior to the sale. Note this year there will be a television in the corner of the woolshed whereby you can ask to view the video of the ram you maybe interested in to get a better idea as to how he may move.
The Helmsman auction is increasingly being accepted by farmers as a better way to buy rams (as opposed to a traditional auction) as clients (and I) believe it allows one to buy a more consistent line of rams, your not being forced to decide how much you might want to pay for, say your fourth pick, before your first comes up, as may occur with a traditional auction, you can access and bid on all rams up to the closing of the sale. From a vendors perspective I think it probably eliminates very high prices but spreads the money over more rams, which is fine by me. Again I reiterate I believe a helmsman auction run in conjunction with an online sale is the future direction for sale, despite the work involved!
I am presently getting a short video edited so that you can see how the sale actually works, with my dulcet tones being placed over the top to hopefully explain how it all works. I expect to have this on my website www.waidalerams.co.nz for viewing in a month or so and it may be loaded on the AgOnline site as well when the online auction goes live.
The 14 Romneys I take to the Feilding High Performance Romney Fair on 20 November 2012, will again be offered at AgOnline so you can bid on them, with the highest bid being the reserve on the day of the sale and as such if there is no higher bid at auction, then they will be knocked down to that bidder. Last year I averaged $1600 for these rams, with some being sold for a $1000 only, so they can be bloody good buying! As I said last year it would be easier for me to simply put these rams in my sale, but I believe in supporting a central fair that allows those looking for a good ram to go to the sale and buy a ram as opposed to having to visit every breeder to view their rams. However by putting them online as well it gives everyone access to these rams if they so desire. You could of course just get an agent to buy them for you if you wish!!
Visiting Clients: Each year I allocate a window to do all this and to date each year my best laid plans come unstuck; our recent water deluge has made it a nightmare and when you are running the place on your own, it just makes it difficult to get away. I have visited a few of you, but lots I have yet to do so. My plan now is hopefully October. I doubt I will get around everyone, but hopefully over a two to three year period I will. Again as I said last year this is extremely important for me to get the feedback about my rams, how they are doing under your management and on your country. It’s great to get good feedback, but the negative is probably more important so I know what might need addressing or is already being addressed by me in my breeding program. If you want to ensure I see you this year, give me a ring and I will make sure it happens, otherwise I will just turn up, if your home all well and good.
Amazing new developments in Waidale’s breeding program!!!!
Good heading, but the reality is we don’t have a brand new silver bullet; we are not using some new revolutionary gene test that will make you millions. The secret to the quality of our rams is consistency of quality which comes from stockmanship and the utilisation of science that actually helps breed better rams not simply market those rams: I still
• don’t drench the adult ewes (those that don’t handle it are culled, our pragmatic worm resistance program): and
• practice an extended drench program of 6 to 8 weeks on our lambs (except for those we cull and kill); and
• cull all year around for conformation constitution etc, all good breeders are always doing this; and
• only use sires that look as they should and have good SIL figures (a good ram with poor figures will not be used and similarly a poor ram with great figures will also not be used); and
• practice the dying art of stockmanship which ensures our flock is of a consistent type that reflects the type of sheep I should be breeding, i.e. good on feet legs, good jaw, good eyes, good colour, good length, good width, good depth, good hind quarters etc. Only sheep that look the part are kept, irrespective of how good its SIL figures maybe. You do this for long enough your phenotype will reflect the genotype, which greatly increases the likelihood that a ram you like the look of will actually pass on the production traits you see in that ram; and
• have all flocks (except the Lincolns) SIL recorded; and
• footrot and cold tolerance profile sires to ensure I am not using a dud ram; and
• eye muscle scan all rams I keep through the winter; and
• cull all Romney ewes that have two singles in a row; and
• mate our ewe hoggets for 18 days only; and
• tag all lambs at birth to ensure accurate pedigrees which in turn promotes greater accuracy in SIL figures; and
• wean in excess of 150%, more like 160 these days, almost irrespective of what they scan; and
• have an honest upfront attitude. I pride myself on my directness and my honesty; and
• have an extensive website www.waidalerams.co.nz, which details all of the above and more; its worth a look; and
• have an opinion on most things as you can probably tell from this news letter.
Wool: Who the hell knows what is happening here, it would seem that the economic crisis in Europe and the continual stuttering economy of the US is the principal reason for the 40% drop in prices from last year. (Just read an article in famers weekly suggesting manufacturers have a lot of finished product on hand they need to get rid of before stocking up on raw wool). Given that the exchange rate was high last year as well and there is still bugger all wool around the world, it seems ludicrous that the $5.10 I got for my second shear winter Romney wool last year is probably going to be in the vicinity of $3.10 to $3.20 this year (Note at this price the ewes still nett after shearing costs in excess of $15 a head per year, not as good as $29, but still a cheque worth having when you still have to shear them). Prior 2011 you often heard “I don’t get enough to cover shearing costs” my response to this was always “they must have crap wool on their sheep”. In my view if you still have to shear them, you may as well have good quality wool on them as it does pay, and contrary to what some people say (normally those selling sheep with little wool) you can breed a sheep with plenty of meat and wool, it’s not mutually exclusive!! If you do maintain a good fleece, then when things do hopefully turn around again, you are well positioned to take advantage of good prices. I maybe a bit biased being a passionate Romney breeder, but seriously I think it’s hard to dispute such pragmatism.
Wools of New Zealand: I see they are trying to get farmers to invest in this now with some prospectus about to come out. I find this a bit laughable because I think originally this was indeed an entity that belonged to us all at the outset, but then it was sold to WPI (effectively Pggw), but I think there was a condition that it could not be owned by a private company, hence with the failure of WPI it was placed in trust and not taken over by Pggw. If I am right as to the above then it’s a bit farcical that we are now being asked to invest in it again.
Mobile CT Scanner: As a councillor on New Zealand Sheep breeders I was delegated the task to find out about the possibility of obtaining and operating a mobile CT Scanner in New Zealand. There is presently one operating in Scotland. If we can pull it off and perhaps expedite the way it is done, then it has the potential to make a significant difference to the sheep industry as a whole, as hopefully the accessibility and cost would not be prohibitive as it is realistically at present. I would like to think that Ct scanning all my ram hoggets instead of eye muscle scanning (which of course simply provides you with a gauge of the eye muscle and nothing more) would then become an option and therefore as you should be scanning a statistically reliable sample of each sire’s progeny, you will get genetic information about the animal as opposed to what most people get now by simply doing one or two; namely getting confirmation or otherwise of what you see, but no genotypic information. We are still trying to ascertain the specifics of the Scotland operation to determine if it will be economically feasible, but here’s hoping.
Ovita and Snip Chip Sheep 5K: My views on the Sheep 50K snip chip are set out in the appendix to this newsletter, basically it’s a waste of time at present, breeders who presently use it, use it for marketing purposes not for breeding better sheep. However NZ Romney is working closely with Ovita to provide DNA samples of all Romney sires from our Meat yield trials in both the North and South Island and encouraging all our Members on SIL to supply DNA samples from all their sires. The aim of this is to provide a wider database to get the get the accuracy up from its present approximate 45% on the various traits to hopefully in time above 75% or more and to develop new traits including facial eczema. At that point I most certainly would use it based on such accuracy because it should enable me to make significant genetics given it’s more likely to be right than wrong as it presently is.
Footrot Gene-Marker Test: The following I took out of Dr Jon Hickfords recent Lincoln University newsletter which I thought may assist some farmers to understand this test better:
“Our original gene-marker test is now being used in eleven countries. With the last two wetter seasons in New Zealand there have been a lot of reports of increased footrot, especially in the usually “lower” rainfall regions (i.e. under 650mm). Farmers who have never, or only rarely had any footrot issues, have seen the disease active for the first time in many years. As an example, one apparently “footrot-free” farm had us test for the presence of Dichelobacter nodosus on several occasions. Unfortunately for them, the organism was present. It needs to be said again, that the footrot gene-marker cannot guarantee you sheep that are footrot resistant. They are “on average more tolerant”. We choose the wording carefully, as even sheep that we rate as 1,1 can, and some do, get footrot. Equally, a few 5,5 sheep may never get footrot. The reason for this is that footrot tolerance has a low to moderate heritability. Some recent heritability estimates are around 20%, which means 80% of variability in the trait is environmental in origin. While we believe that our gene test explains some of the genetic variation it certainly doesn’t explain all of it! This doesn’t mean the gene test is ineffective, just that breeding for improved footrot tolerance is a challenge. Breeders’ …….. who just selected for footrot tolerance by culling affected sheep, took many years to establish their robust flocks. This stated, when we tested their flocks, we very rarely found any sheep with either 4 or 5 scores and a very high proportion of 1-scoring animals. Our advice to users of the test remains therefore to work away from sheep with 4 or 5 scores, either by culling, using the genetics in a terminal-sire system, or by mating to ewes with better scores……. We do not promulgate the argument that 1,1 rams are “bomb-proof”, just that “on average” they are less likely to get footrot than animals with higher scores.”
Meat Companies: I have to say that I am not too impressed with them at the moment, I appreciate that the state of Europe and the high exchange rate was and is a reason why the schedule price dropped so drastically last season and will be considerably less this season. However the cynic in me questions whether the price was dropping quicker than it should this last year so the meat companies, who were active in the store lamb market (who all paid ridicolous prices early on for store lambs) could recover some of their losses from its very own shareholders, you and me. My neighbour had in excess of 5000 lambs grazing for CMP, for which the schedule would have to of been $7 or better for those lambs to break even, but the schedule was no where near that when killed. If it had been a farmer who overpaid for those store lambs, it would only be that farmer who suffered the loss, not all of the cooperative shareholders if the cynic in me is correct. I think they should keep out of the store lamb market, they can link buyers to sellers, but leave the rest up to them.
I am an alliance supplier, but my loyalty is being severely tested in recent times. They claim to give you a meat yield premium, but their drafters last season had a piece of paper to show you how if x% of the line you draft meet the yielding threshold, then their schedule would be competitive with SFF. In other words it’s not a premium they adjust the schedule to simply keep what they pay in line with principally SFF’s schedule.
I was also assured prior to last year’s season that the yield grading would be changed for this upcoming season to a system whereby you would get paid a separate premium for meeting shoulder, loin and hindquarter thresholds, one would not been dependent on hitting the threshold of the other, but it seems these may have been words uttered to simply placate me at the time. I do think this is very important so as to ensure that the emphasis is on the more expensive cuts i.e. the loin and hindquarter; because at present if you fail on the shoulder (the cheapest cut of the carcass) you don’t get any premium for loin or hindquarter even if you exceed the threshold. We need to ensure that we maintain the right shaped sheep and focus on the expensive cuts and not end up with sheep with massive shoulders that we have spent the last 20 years trying to fine down simply to get this so called “yield premium”.
The other issue with the Alliance’s alleged premium is they have two different rates, last year $4.50 up to 80% of lambs that yield; over 80% of a line yielding you got $6 a lamb. One justification for this was the handling of such lines, surely this is farcical, presumably the chain is computerised and as such all carcasses that meet the yield thresholds are just automatically sent to differing store locations? Secondly the other justification put forward for a staggered premium is that its supposed to create a greater incentive to have more lambs meet the yield threshold, if you are getting paid a premium I fail to see how an extra $1.50 makes you strive any harder to reach the magic target of 80%: we all want to make as much as we can so naturally you are always trying to breed better meat yielding animals are you not?.
Finally I wish the meat companies would issue contracts which are the same for all who have lambs killed in the same week and not have different prices for traders or third party suppliers (who aren’t even shareholders). I personally would sign a contract to supply lambs at a price less than a competitive processor if I knew the company I supply was treating everyone the same; as I would back that company to do a good job and reap any reward as a pool payment later on. We have to address this ridicolous procurement system we have and it has to be done while lamb is worth something, not when it’s worth nothing and no one gives a stuff about it. This last year the way the schedule dropped it reminded me of the petrol companies, how they all seem to do the same thing at the same time, amazing!!!
Romneys Today: Twenty five years ago Romney breeders were probably a bit arrogant, they did not take heed of the market, they were too big, slab sided, woolly headed and low in fertility. The corporate breeders (as I call them) were quick to meet the market at that time producing a smaller open faced Romney that produced more lambs (some by some dubious means). As a consequence hundreds of traditional Romney breeders went by the way; they could not sell their rams as they weren’t what the market wanted.
But for those of us who are still breeding today, I believe a good analogy is how many farmers perceived the Southdowns in recent years, where up until a couple of years ago, the most common comment about this breed from farmers to me was “how they had changed so much in recent times: gone from a short small wasty animal to a bigger longer and leaner sheep” still quick maturing, truly a good terminal sire. My response was always the same: “there is no better incentive to change the breed than not being able to sell them, however Southdowns have actually been a very different breed for many years now, but it’s only in recent times that the majority of farmers have become aware of this.” I believe this is the case for the modern Romney, like Waidale Romneys: they are a medium sized sheep (not massive, but not small either as many Romneys have become too small, there is a happy medium), they are open faced while still maintaining good wool weights, fertility is no longer an issue (150, 160% weaning is common place these days) and yet they are still great mothers with good survivability and constitution. In other words over time I believe farmers will slowly realise that the modern Romney is so different from 25 years ago and has been for quite some time now and that they are in fact as good as if not better better sheep than a lot of corporate Romneys or indeed various crossbreds that have become common place in recent years.
Science and cross breeding: I have again added as an appendix my thoughts on this despite the fact I included it in my newsletter last year because this news letter is going to a number of people who did not get it last year and I think its very important that people think about the issues I raise, even if they don’t agree. I have updated it somewhat, but if you read it last year you may wish to skip it this year.
As you can tell this is not strictly speaking a newsletter, it’s more of a forum to express my thoughts and make people think. If we all express our views who knows what may develop from what initially maybe simply a throwaway comment. If there is anything in here that requires clarification or you would like to debate, please feel free to give me a call, I enjoy a good constructive debate.
The Catalogue will be uploaded at www.agonline.co.nz and live around 3 weeks before the actual sale date of 28 November 2012: all you will have to do is go to that site and click on the Waidalerams sale icon to get there. Those of you who would like a catalogue posted out to you, just forward me an email confirming the same with your postal address and I will ensure you get one. I hope to see you all at the sale and have a beer with you.
Yours Faithfully
Ike Williams
Appendix to Newsletter 2012:
Breeders using Science to sell rams, but not necessarily improve rams.
This is increasingly becoming more the norm than not, it annoys the hell out of me. You need to seriously question what some breeders dribble on about. A lot of the time it is simply a marketing tool to sell rams, but adds no value genetically to those rams. I am always evaluating the various things that come out to see if they will add value to my operation, a lot of it doesn’t stack up under critical evaluation:
Footrot and cold tolerance test: I Dna profile for this (although the threshold for cold tolerance needs to be lifted dramatically), but these are useful gene tests that do assist in providing a genetically better animal.
The following, I seriously question the merits of the test or how it is being used by breeders:
Worm Star test; its approx 80% about growth and 20% about worms, SIL gives you reliable data on growth rates so this is a total waste of time and a marketing gimmick
Carla Saliva test for worms: I got the information on this with the definite intention of doing my lambs, but after talking to a couple of colleagues, (one who has been involved with Agresearch for many years) I am fairly cynical as to whether this adds any value whatsoever to genetic heritability in my rams. I still to be convinced in 2012.
Sheep 50k Snip chip: This now costs in the vicinity $400 per ram (as opposed to 8 or 900) to get what? Take for example the number of lambs born breeding value via this chip, it has an accuracy of around 45%, yes that’s right 45%, so its wrong 55% of the time. If fertility is what you are looking for, find an honest breeder and ask what their track record is on fertility, for instance with our Romneys we have weaned around 150% for 10 years now; in recent years more like 160%, i.e. its tracking upwards. I have just read an article in the Strait furrow where it’s promoting this test, but to me its all marketing puffery, the most significant thing they don’t mention in the article is the accuracy of the test, I know it still is topping out at 45% accuracy on any trait, so ask yourself why would you use it. The Pfizer rep advised “that’s better than SIL” (for e.g. Nlbbv), which is correct but it still doesn’t make it any use does it?
Myomax gene test: This is a Texel specific gene test only, so if someone is advertising Romneys with a single and/or double copy of this gene, then they are not Romneys at all, they are simply crossbreds: i.e. a Romney that has had a Texel put over it, it could be ½ Romney, ¾ Romney etc. Good luck to anyone who wants to do this, but I would ask that breeders don’t try and deceive Farmers by advertising them as Romneys because they are not!!!! There is at least one breeder I know of who is marketing rams with single and double copies of Myomax as Romneys not crossbreds. Similarly Suffolks advertised with the myomax gene are Suftexs (yes crossbreds).
Note myomax gene essentially means 10% more eye muscle than what the animal would already have, so be wary if the animal has a crap eye muscle in the first place, one copy of myomax will give you 10% more of crap, which is not a lot!. You don’t need myomax to get high yielding lambs, the RNZ meat yield trial has shown that, with lines of Romney lambs yielding 56 to 58%.
The other thing that I believe is happening from chasing very high yielding lambs and high eye muscle in particular is that the length of the loin and the hindquarter is shortening up; this is across all breeds, which results in lambs taken longer to kill. You need to maintain length in both areas as well as yield to get the best of both worlds. This is an issue because there aren’t any objective tests to measure this: it comes down to stockmanship, which as I have harped on before is a dying art amongst breeders.
Some of you may think I am arrogant in stating the following but I seriously believe that my stockmanship as to what constitutes a good animal is why my rams are as good as they are, consistent selection on phenotype (what they look like) over many years means their genotype, their genetic makeup, are more likely to breed true. If your animals are all different shapes and sizes, wool types etc, you are often taking a punt as to how a ram may breed, but if they are consistent over a long period of time, then its highly likely the ram will breed that way as well.
It’s stockmanship that gives you sustainable genetic gain (science shows it’s around 2.5%). If for example you improve your fertility by 10% in one cross, then it’s highly likely that to achieve that gain that you have gone backwards in other areas, perhaps meat yield, wool or survivability or all three. When breeding rams you are in it for the long haul, so you need to ensure that you maintain it all, while improving, which is why breeding is not simple, you need passion and to take a long term view of what you are trying to achieve.
CT Scanning: If you are CT scanning a decent sample size of every sire, i.e. say 25 sons, then this is good reliable information, but if you are just doing a few rams of different sires that you maybe using, then it’s meaningless, as it simply tells you that based on phenotype that ram may have a lot of meat (which presumably you could tell by looking at him), but genotype, i.e. genetically who knows as you have not tested enough of the sires progeny to find out. You need to ask more questions about claims of such scanning before deciding if it’s of any value to you
SIL ACE Index: High rankings on this Index can be good thing or can be very misleading. Firstly if an animal is a crossbred that is recorded, then as SIL makes no allowances for the effect of hybrid vigour then comparisons against purebreds are distorted. Hybrid vigour for example on average will give you a lift of 9% in fertility, 3% in survival, 6% in weaning weight, which has nothing to do with the sheep at all, it’s a direct result of crossing a breed, so someone claiming their Romneys rank well on SIL Ace when they have Texel through them, isn’t a genuine comparison is it? In reality all crossbreds in my opinion should be in separate ranking index to purebreds for this very reason, even the CPT trial results are somewhat distorted by comparing crossbreds against purebreds. You take the purebred yourself and then cross it over your different breed of ewes, you then accrue all those hybrid vigour gains.
Furthermore the more you tend to measure on SIL the more likely you will rank higher on SIL Ace, in other words it’s not necessarily a great guide as to what are the best sheep. A competitor of mine had nlbbv’s for his Romney rams that quite simply were amazing when one considered the dam’s lambing history: Ewes at Waidale with the same lambing history would have much poorer Nlbbvs; I raised this with Mark Young of SIL in 2010, who advised me that my competitor probably had a lot of dry ewes and/or a greater variation in the fertility performance of his ewes, which inevitably results in better breeding values for the better performing ewes in that flock. I reiterate my standard line with SIL “SIL is of use if you understand the problems with it”.
Cross breeding: My thoughts on this for what is worth is that I don’t understand why people go and buy crossbred rams and put them over their capital flock to breed replacements.
In most instances:
• you miss out on the full benefit of hybrid vigour as the breeder in creating the cross gets the hybrid vigour in the ram he is selling to you (you may get something out of it if your maternal flock is not any of the breeds in the crossbred ram you are using).; and
• the crossbred rams come from the poorer performing purebred ewes that the breeder has; these breeders can say what they like but I only know of one guy who ensures that a proportion of his top ewes are used to produce the crossbred rams he sells, it’s a rarity. So in most cases you are buying inferior genetics; and
• you cannot be sure if the crossbred ram’s performance data and breeding values etc are the result of using good genetics or simply attributable to hybrid vigour. The hybrid vigour could mask inferior genetics because as stated above SIL does not make any allowances for hybrid vigour. Initially you may do alright, but 5 years down the track you will start to stagnate and few more years on you could be worse off than at the beginning!!
To me it makes much more sense to go and buy a purebred ram and put him over your capital flock and create the cross you are looking for. For example if you want Romdales and you have Romney ewes, then go and buy the best Perendale rams you can. You source the best genetics and true genetics; you get all the hybrid vigour. Later on if you think your capital flock is getting too far the other way, you go buy the best Romney rams you can. It requires a bit of drafting at mating, but that’s all, but to me it’s a no brainer. Note this argument is not as strong for terminals as generally the capital flock will be a different breed to what you are buying and of course you are cutting the heads off those lambs. You just need to be careful in evaluating the performance data and breeding values on those rams.
Note you can get a short term gain from simply just using very different bloodlines of the same breed, particularly with Romneys. For example if you have been using Wairere Romneys for 10 years, I am fairly confident that you will get productivity gains from using Waidale Romneys (almost irrespective of how good they are) for at least the first five years, as they are so different in blood lines (in effect hybrid vigour within the breed), the crunch time to determine how good the Waidale rams are is when Waidale rams are going over a flock that at least are half Waidale bloodlines (i.e. five years down the track. Naturally as we are talking about Waidale rams they are bound to deliver the production gains!!!
Crossbreeds that become closed flocks: What I am talking about here is a breed that starts from the crossing of other breeds, initially it’s a first cross, for example the Border Romney cross (which I think most people would accept is a great sheep so long as you can feed them well all the time), but later the first cross is crossed over first crosses and so on whereby you end up with what we know as the Coopworth, they become a closed flock where no more first crosses are created, in other words they stabilise it creating a new breed. Most Coopdale flocks are another example of this these days; similarly there are a number of composites, the Kelso I believe has been closed for a number of years, I am not sure about Tefroms. Romdales are normally simply first crosses (the rams that are sold at least are).
What one needs to be wary of with the closing off or stabilising of such breeds is the production from such sheep, the more generations you get into them, production can tend to wane over time, it maybe simply a levelling off as opposed to decreasing. Apart from the loss of hybrid vigour effects as your ewes become this other breed, the problem for the breeder is just a lack of genetic gene pool they have to select from, which inhibits their ability to make continuing genetic gains. The Coopworths were a classic example whereby it got to a point that the society actually allowed its breeders to go back and introduce a pure Romney or border etc to revitalise the breed, not everyone did this but a lot did. This is major issue for me in breeding Lincolns: there are so few around these days, it gives new meaning to line breeding, I am often treading water to maintain production, you don’t make the same progress, until you find that one ram that does improve production. Sometimes a breeder introduces a cross back in to offset this, however this is something a farmer can do themselves, if they do feel production is waning, for example I believe there is a good opportunity to put a cross of the modern Romney over coopdale, coopworth on indeed a composite ewes, and then go back over them with coopdale etc rams if want to maintain that type of sheep.
Our Fourth On Farm Sale will be at 3pm on Wednesday 28 November 2012 with around 160 plus Rams being put up for sale: approximately 60 Romneys, 50 Southdowns, 50 South Suffolks, half dozen Suftex rams and perhaps a Lincoln or two. I believe that quality wise they will be the best I have put up to date: Romneys are again very good; consistent type, good wool and good fertility. The Southdowns should be the best line-up I have offered for sale for a few years, (I had two sires that bred well in the same season, who would have thought!!). South Suffolks again good meaty terminal sires. For those who haven’t attended my sale before, I do hope you can find the time and the inclination to come and have a look and if nothing else have a beer and sausage on me, the more the merrier.
One thing I would add, in my opinion naturally, is that you will struggle to find a line of rams with consistently better hindquarters than what I have got, that’s in all my breeds, it’s because I do place a lot of emphasis on this. The only way to achieve it is through stockmanship, there is no reliable statistic, breeding value or measurement that tells you if a ram has got a good hindquarter, it comes down to assessing by eye, the length, width, carry out and depth and then breeding for it, yes stockmanship, which as I have stated before is sadly lacking with some breeders these days!!! If the meat companies ever legitimately (as opposed to saying they do) get around to paying a real premium for meat yield, hindquarter will be a big part of it, given it’s a substantial part of the carcass and the second most expensive cut (behind the loin).
On Line Sale: Our Helmsman sale will be run in conjunction with AgOnline for the third straight year. Last year we sold 12 rams online as opposed to one the year before. It is certainly something that is growing and gaining credibility with an increasing number of farmers. Not only by those who cannot make it to the sale and decide to select their rams from the videos etc or alternatively those who look at the rams prior to the sale and then bid from home, but also those who do attend sale day, as some are doing their homework prior to the sale by looking at the videos and data and narrowing it down to those they want to look at on the day. All the performance data (including hopefully this year the weight of the ram around the time of videoing to give you a rough comparative gauge of his size) and 20 second videos (it should be high definition this year) of each ram will be On Line for viewing about 3 weeks prior to the sale. Note this year there will be a television in the corner of the woolshed whereby you can ask to view the video of the ram you maybe interested in to get a better idea as to how he may move.
The Helmsman auction is increasingly being accepted by farmers as a better way to buy rams (as opposed to a traditional auction) as clients (and I) believe it allows one to buy a more consistent line of rams, your not being forced to decide how much you might want to pay for, say your fourth pick, before your first comes up, as may occur with a traditional auction, you can access and bid on all rams up to the closing of the sale. From a vendors perspective I think it probably eliminates very high prices but spreads the money over more rams, which is fine by me. Again I reiterate I believe a helmsman auction run in conjunction with an online sale is the future direction for sale, despite the work involved!
I am presently getting a short video edited so that you can see how the sale actually works, with my dulcet tones being placed over the top to hopefully explain how it all works. I expect to have this on my website www.waidalerams.co.nz for viewing in a month or so and it may be loaded on the AgOnline site as well when the online auction goes live.
The 14 Romneys I take to the Feilding High Performance Romney Fair on 20 November 2012, will again be offered at AgOnline so you can bid on them, with the highest bid being the reserve on the day of the sale and as such if there is no higher bid at auction, then they will be knocked down to that bidder. Last year I averaged $1600 for these rams, with some being sold for a $1000 only, so they can be bloody good buying! As I said last year it would be easier for me to simply put these rams in my sale, but I believe in supporting a central fair that allows those looking for a good ram to go to the sale and buy a ram as opposed to having to visit every breeder to view their rams. However by putting them online as well it gives everyone access to these rams if they so desire. You could of course just get an agent to buy them for you if you wish!!
Visiting Clients: Each year I allocate a window to do all this and to date each year my best laid plans come unstuck; our recent water deluge has made it a nightmare and when you are running the place on your own, it just makes it difficult to get away. I have visited a few of you, but lots I have yet to do so. My plan now is hopefully October. I doubt I will get around everyone, but hopefully over a two to three year period I will. Again as I said last year this is extremely important for me to get the feedback about my rams, how they are doing under your management and on your country. It’s great to get good feedback, but the negative is probably more important so I know what might need addressing or is already being addressed by me in my breeding program. If you want to ensure I see you this year, give me a ring and I will make sure it happens, otherwise I will just turn up, if your home all well and good.
Amazing new developments in Waidale’s breeding program!!!!
Good heading, but the reality is we don’t have a brand new silver bullet; we are not using some new revolutionary gene test that will make you millions. The secret to the quality of our rams is consistency of quality which comes from stockmanship and the utilisation of science that actually helps breed better rams not simply market those rams: I still
• don’t drench the adult ewes (those that don’t handle it are culled, our pragmatic worm resistance program): and
• practice an extended drench program of 6 to 8 weeks on our lambs (except for those we cull and kill); and
• cull all year around for conformation constitution etc, all good breeders are always doing this; and
• only use sires that look as they should and have good SIL figures (a good ram with poor figures will not be used and similarly a poor ram with great figures will also not be used); and
• practice the dying art of stockmanship which ensures our flock is of a consistent type that reflects the type of sheep I should be breeding, i.e. good on feet legs, good jaw, good eyes, good colour, good length, good width, good depth, good hind quarters etc. Only sheep that look the part are kept, irrespective of how good its SIL figures maybe. You do this for long enough your phenotype will reflect the genotype, which greatly increases the likelihood that a ram you like the look of will actually pass on the production traits you see in that ram; and
• have all flocks (except the Lincolns) SIL recorded; and
• footrot and cold tolerance profile sires to ensure I am not using a dud ram; and
• eye muscle scan all rams I keep through the winter; and
• cull all Romney ewes that have two singles in a row; and
• mate our ewe hoggets for 18 days only; and
• tag all lambs at birth to ensure accurate pedigrees which in turn promotes greater accuracy in SIL figures; and
• wean in excess of 150%, more like 160 these days, almost irrespective of what they scan; and
• have an honest upfront attitude. I pride myself on my directness and my honesty; and
• have an extensive website www.waidalerams.co.nz, which details all of the above and more; its worth a look; and
• have an opinion on most things as you can probably tell from this news letter.
Wool: Who the hell knows what is happening here, it would seem that the economic crisis in Europe and the continual stuttering economy of the US is the principal reason for the 40% drop in prices from last year. (Just read an article in famers weekly suggesting manufacturers have a lot of finished product on hand they need to get rid of before stocking up on raw wool). Given that the exchange rate was high last year as well and there is still bugger all wool around the world, it seems ludicrous that the $5.10 I got for my second shear winter Romney wool last year is probably going to be in the vicinity of $3.10 to $3.20 this year (Note at this price the ewes still nett after shearing costs in excess of $15 a head per year, not as good as $29, but still a cheque worth having when you still have to shear them). Prior 2011 you often heard “I don’t get enough to cover shearing costs” my response to this was always “they must have crap wool on their sheep”. In my view if you still have to shear them, you may as well have good quality wool on them as it does pay, and contrary to what some people say (normally those selling sheep with little wool) you can breed a sheep with plenty of meat and wool, it’s not mutually exclusive!! If you do maintain a good fleece, then when things do hopefully turn around again, you are well positioned to take advantage of good prices. I maybe a bit biased being a passionate Romney breeder, but seriously I think it’s hard to dispute such pragmatism.
Wools of New Zealand: I see they are trying to get farmers to invest in this now with some prospectus about to come out. I find this a bit laughable because I think originally this was indeed an entity that belonged to us all at the outset, but then it was sold to WPI (effectively Pggw), but I think there was a condition that it could not be owned by a private company, hence with the failure of WPI it was placed in trust and not taken over by Pggw. If I am right as to the above then it’s a bit farcical that we are now being asked to invest in it again.
Mobile CT Scanner: As a councillor on New Zealand Sheep breeders I was delegated the task to find out about the possibility of obtaining and operating a mobile CT Scanner in New Zealand. There is presently one operating in Scotland. If we can pull it off and perhaps expedite the way it is done, then it has the potential to make a significant difference to the sheep industry as a whole, as hopefully the accessibility and cost would not be prohibitive as it is realistically at present. I would like to think that Ct scanning all my ram hoggets instead of eye muscle scanning (which of course simply provides you with a gauge of the eye muscle and nothing more) would then become an option and therefore as you should be scanning a statistically reliable sample of each sire’s progeny, you will get genetic information about the animal as opposed to what most people get now by simply doing one or two; namely getting confirmation or otherwise of what you see, but no genotypic information. We are still trying to ascertain the specifics of the Scotland operation to determine if it will be economically feasible, but here’s hoping.
Ovita and Snip Chip Sheep 5K: My views on the Sheep 50K snip chip are set out in the appendix to this newsletter, basically it’s a waste of time at present, breeders who presently use it, use it for marketing purposes not for breeding better sheep. However NZ Romney is working closely with Ovita to provide DNA samples of all Romney sires from our Meat yield trials in both the North and South Island and encouraging all our Members on SIL to supply DNA samples from all their sires. The aim of this is to provide a wider database to get the get the accuracy up from its present approximate 45% on the various traits to hopefully in time above 75% or more and to develop new traits including facial eczema. At that point I most certainly would use it based on such accuracy because it should enable me to make significant genetics given it’s more likely to be right than wrong as it presently is.
Footrot Gene-Marker Test: The following I took out of Dr Jon Hickfords recent Lincoln University newsletter which I thought may assist some farmers to understand this test better:
“Our original gene-marker test is now being used in eleven countries. With the last two wetter seasons in New Zealand there have been a lot of reports of increased footrot, especially in the usually “lower” rainfall regions (i.e. under 650mm). Farmers who have never, or only rarely had any footrot issues, have seen the disease active for the first time in many years. As an example, one apparently “footrot-free” farm had us test for the presence of Dichelobacter nodosus on several occasions. Unfortunately for them, the organism was present. It needs to be said again, that the footrot gene-marker cannot guarantee you sheep that are footrot resistant. They are “on average more tolerant”. We choose the wording carefully, as even sheep that we rate as 1,1 can, and some do, get footrot. Equally, a few 5,5 sheep may never get footrot. The reason for this is that footrot tolerance has a low to moderate heritability. Some recent heritability estimates are around 20%, which means 80% of variability in the trait is environmental in origin. While we believe that our gene test explains some of the genetic variation it certainly doesn’t explain all of it! This doesn’t mean the gene test is ineffective, just that breeding for improved footrot tolerance is a challenge. Breeders’ …….. who just selected for footrot tolerance by culling affected sheep, took many years to establish their robust flocks. This stated, when we tested their flocks, we very rarely found any sheep with either 4 or 5 scores and a very high proportion of 1-scoring animals. Our advice to users of the test remains therefore to work away from sheep with 4 or 5 scores, either by culling, using the genetics in a terminal-sire system, or by mating to ewes with better scores……. We do not promulgate the argument that 1,1 rams are “bomb-proof”, just that “on average” they are less likely to get footrot than animals with higher scores.”
Meat Companies: I have to say that I am not too impressed with them at the moment, I appreciate that the state of Europe and the high exchange rate was and is a reason why the schedule price dropped so drastically last season and will be considerably less this season. However the cynic in me questions whether the price was dropping quicker than it should this last year so the meat companies, who were active in the store lamb market (who all paid ridicolous prices early on for store lambs) could recover some of their losses from its very own shareholders, you and me. My neighbour had in excess of 5000 lambs grazing for CMP, for which the schedule would have to of been $7 or better for those lambs to break even, but the schedule was no where near that when killed. If it had been a farmer who overpaid for those store lambs, it would only be that farmer who suffered the loss, not all of the cooperative shareholders if the cynic in me is correct. I think they should keep out of the store lamb market, they can link buyers to sellers, but leave the rest up to them.
I am an alliance supplier, but my loyalty is being severely tested in recent times. They claim to give you a meat yield premium, but their drafters last season had a piece of paper to show you how if x% of the line you draft meet the yielding threshold, then their schedule would be competitive with SFF. In other words it’s not a premium they adjust the schedule to simply keep what they pay in line with principally SFF’s schedule.
I was also assured prior to last year’s season that the yield grading would be changed for this upcoming season to a system whereby you would get paid a separate premium for meeting shoulder, loin and hindquarter thresholds, one would not been dependent on hitting the threshold of the other, but it seems these may have been words uttered to simply placate me at the time. I do think this is very important so as to ensure that the emphasis is on the more expensive cuts i.e. the loin and hindquarter; because at present if you fail on the shoulder (the cheapest cut of the carcass) you don’t get any premium for loin or hindquarter even if you exceed the threshold. We need to ensure that we maintain the right shaped sheep and focus on the expensive cuts and not end up with sheep with massive shoulders that we have spent the last 20 years trying to fine down simply to get this so called “yield premium”.
The other issue with the Alliance’s alleged premium is they have two different rates, last year $4.50 up to 80% of lambs that yield; over 80% of a line yielding you got $6 a lamb. One justification for this was the handling of such lines, surely this is farcical, presumably the chain is computerised and as such all carcasses that meet the yield thresholds are just automatically sent to differing store locations? Secondly the other justification put forward for a staggered premium is that its supposed to create a greater incentive to have more lambs meet the yield threshold, if you are getting paid a premium I fail to see how an extra $1.50 makes you strive any harder to reach the magic target of 80%: we all want to make as much as we can so naturally you are always trying to breed better meat yielding animals are you not?.
Finally I wish the meat companies would issue contracts which are the same for all who have lambs killed in the same week and not have different prices for traders or third party suppliers (who aren’t even shareholders). I personally would sign a contract to supply lambs at a price less than a competitive processor if I knew the company I supply was treating everyone the same; as I would back that company to do a good job and reap any reward as a pool payment later on. We have to address this ridicolous procurement system we have and it has to be done while lamb is worth something, not when it’s worth nothing and no one gives a stuff about it. This last year the way the schedule dropped it reminded me of the petrol companies, how they all seem to do the same thing at the same time, amazing!!!
Romneys Today: Twenty five years ago Romney breeders were probably a bit arrogant, they did not take heed of the market, they were too big, slab sided, woolly headed and low in fertility. The corporate breeders (as I call them) were quick to meet the market at that time producing a smaller open faced Romney that produced more lambs (some by some dubious means). As a consequence hundreds of traditional Romney breeders went by the way; they could not sell their rams as they weren’t what the market wanted.
But for those of us who are still breeding today, I believe a good analogy is how many farmers perceived the Southdowns in recent years, where up until a couple of years ago, the most common comment about this breed from farmers to me was “how they had changed so much in recent times: gone from a short small wasty animal to a bigger longer and leaner sheep” still quick maturing, truly a good terminal sire. My response was always the same: “there is no better incentive to change the breed than not being able to sell them, however Southdowns have actually been a very different breed for many years now, but it’s only in recent times that the majority of farmers have become aware of this.” I believe this is the case for the modern Romney, like Waidale Romneys: they are a medium sized sheep (not massive, but not small either as many Romneys have become too small, there is a happy medium), they are open faced while still maintaining good wool weights, fertility is no longer an issue (150, 160% weaning is common place these days) and yet they are still great mothers with good survivability and constitution. In other words over time I believe farmers will slowly realise that the modern Romney is so different from 25 years ago and has been for quite some time now and that they are in fact as good as if not better better sheep than a lot of corporate Romneys or indeed various crossbreds that have become common place in recent years.
Science and cross breeding: I have again added as an appendix my thoughts on this despite the fact I included it in my newsletter last year because this news letter is going to a number of people who did not get it last year and I think its very important that people think about the issues I raise, even if they don’t agree. I have updated it somewhat, but if you read it last year you may wish to skip it this year.
As you can tell this is not strictly speaking a newsletter, it’s more of a forum to express my thoughts and make people think. If we all express our views who knows what may develop from what initially maybe simply a throwaway comment. If there is anything in here that requires clarification or you would like to debate, please feel free to give me a call, I enjoy a good constructive debate.
The Catalogue will be uploaded at www.agonline.co.nz and live around 3 weeks before the actual sale date of 28 November 2012: all you will have to do is go to that site and click on the Waidalerams sale icon to get there. Those of you who would like a catalogue posted out to you, just forward me an email confirming the same with your postal address and I will ensure you get one. I hope to see you all at the sale and have a beer with you.
Yours Faithfully
Ike Williams
Appendix to Newsletter 2012:
Breeders using Science to sell rams, but not necessarily improve rams.
This is increasingly becoming more the norm than not, it annoys the hell out of me. You need to seriously question what some breeders dribble on about. A lot of the time it is simply a marketing tool to sell rams, but adds no value genetically to those rams. I am always evaluating the various things that come out to see if they will add value to my operation, a lot of it doesn’t stack up under critical evaluation:
Footrot and cold tolerance test: I Dna profile for this (although the threshold for cold tolerance needs to be lifted dramatically), but these are useful gene tests that do assist in providing a genetically better animal.
The following, I seriously question the merits of the test or how it is being used by breeders:
Worm Star test; its approx 80% about growth and 20% about worms, SIL gives you reliable data on growth rates so this is a total waste of time and a marketing gimmick
Carla Saliva test for worms: I got the information on this with the definite intention of doing my lambs, but after talking to a couple of colleagues, (one who has been involved with Agresearch for many years) I am fairly cynical as to whether this adds any value whatsoever to genetic heritability in my rams. I still to be convinced in 2012.
Sheep 50k Snip chip: This now costs in the vicinity $400 per ram (as opposed to 8 or 900) to get what? Take for example the number of lambs born breeding value via this chip, it has an accuracy of around 45%, yes that’s right 45%, so its wrong 55% of the time. If fertility is what you are looking for, find an honest breeder and ask what their track record is on fertility, for instance with our Romneys we have weaned around 150% for 10 years now; in recent years more like 160%, i.e. its tracking upwards. I have just read an article in the Strait furrow where it’s promoting this test, but to me its all marketing puffery, the most significant thing they don’t mention in the article is the accuracy of the test, I know it still is topping out at 45% accuracy on any trait, so ask yourself why would you use it. The Pfizer rep advised “that’s better than SIL” (for e.g. Nlbbv), which is correct but it still doesn’t make it any use does it?
Myomax gene test: This is a Texel specific gene test only, so if someone is advertising Romneys with a single and/or double copy of this gene, then they are not Romneys at all, they are simply crossbreds: i.e. a Romney that has had a Texel put over it, it could be ½ Romney, ¾ Romney etc. Good luck to anyone who wants to do this, but I would ask that breeders don’t try and deceive Farmers by advertising them as Romneys because they are not!!!! There is at least one breeder I know of who is marketing rams with single and double copies of Myomax as Romneys not crossbreds. Similarly Suffolks advertised with the myomax gene are Suftexs (yes crossbreds).
Note myomax gene essentially means 10% more eye muscle than what the animal would already have, so be wary if the animal has a crap eye muscle in the first place, one copy of myomax will give you 10% more of crap, which is not a lot!. You don’t need myomax to get high yielding lambs, the RNZ meat yield trial has shown that, with lines of Romney lambs yielding 56 to 58%.
The other thing that I believe is happening from chasing very high yielding lambs and high eye muscle in particular is that the length of the loin and the hindquarter is shortening up; this is across all breeds, which results in lambs taken longer to kill. You need to maintain length in both areas as well as yield to get the best of both worlds. This is an issue because there aren’t any objective tests to measure this: it comes down to stockmanship, which as I have harped on before is a dying art amongst breeders.
Some of you may think I am arrogant in stating the following but I seriously believe that my stockmanship as to what constitutes a good animal is why my rams are as good as they are, consistent selection on phenotype (what they look like) over many years means their genotype, their genetic makeup, are more likely to breed true. If your animals are all different shapes and sizes, wool types etc, you are often taking a punt as to how a ram may breed, but if they are consistent over a long period of time, then its highly likely the ram will breed that way as well.
It’s stockmanship that gives you sustainable genetic gain (science shows it’s around 2.5%). If for example you improve your fertility by 10% in one cross, then it’s highly likely that to achieve that gain that you have gone backwards in other areas, perhaps meat yield, wool or survivability or all three. When breeding rams you are in it for the long haul, so you need to ensure that you maintain it all, while improving, which is why breeding is not simple, you need passion and to take a long term view of what you are trying to achieve.
CT Scanning: If you are CT scanning a decent sample size of every sire, i.e. say 25 sons, then this is good reliable information, but if you are just doing a few rams of different sires that you maybe using, then it’s meaningless, as it simply tells you that based on phenotype that ram may have a lot of meat (which presumably you could tell by looking at him), but genotype, i.e. genetically who knows as you have not tested enough of the sires progeny to find out. You need to ask more questions about claims of such scanning before deciding if it’s of any value to you
SIL ACE Index: High rankings on this Index can be good thing or can be very misleading. Firstly if an animal is a crossbred that is recorded, then as SIL makes no allowances for the effect of hybrid vigour then comparisons against purebreds are distorted. Hybrid vigour for example on average will give you a lift of 9% in fertility, 3% in survival, 6% in weaning weight, which has nothing to do with the sheep at all, it’s a direct result of crossing a breed, so someone claiming their Romneys rank well on SIL Ace when they have Texel through them, isn’t a genuine comparison is it? In reality all crossbreds in my opinion should be in separate ranking index to purebreds for this very reason, even the CPT trial results are somewhat distorted by comparing crossbreds against purebreds. You take the purebred yourself and then cross it over your different breed of ewes, you then accrue all those hybrid vigour gains.
Furthermore the more you tend to measure on SIL the more likely you will rank higher on SIL Ace, in other words it’s not necessarily a great guide as to what are the best sheep. A competitor of mine had nlbbv’s for his Romney rams that quite simply were amazing when one considered the dam’s lambing history: Ewes at Waidale with the same lambing history would have much poorer Nlbbvs; I raised this with Mark Young of SIL in 2010, who advised me that my competitor probably had a lot of dry ewes and/or a greater variation in the fertility performance of his ewes, which inevitably results in better breeding values for the better performing ewes in that flock. I reiterate my standard line with SIL “SIL is of use if you understand the problems with it”.
Cross breeding: My thoughts on this for what is worth is that I don’t understand why people go and buy crossbred rams and put them over their capital flock to breed replacements.
In most instances:
• you miss out on the full benefit of hybrid vigour as the breeder in creating the cross gets the hybrid vigour in the ram he is selling to you (you may get something out of it if your maternal flock is not any of the breeds in the crossbred ram you are using).; and
• the crossbred rams come from the poorer performing purebred ewes that the breeder has; these breeders can say what they like but I only know of one guy who ensures that a proportion of his top ewes are used to produce the crossbred rams he sells, it’s a rarity. So in most cases you are buying inferior genetics; and
• you cannot be sure if the crossbred ram’s performance data and breeding values etc are the result of using good genetics or simply attributable to hybrid vigour. The hybrid vigour could mask inferior genetics because as stated above SIL does not make any allowances for hybrid vigour. Initially you may do alright, but 5 years down the track you will start to stagnate and few more years on you could be worse off than at the beginning!!
To me it makes much more sense to go and buy a purebred ram and put him over your capital flock and create the cross you are looking for. For example if you want Romdales and you have Romney ewes, then go and buy the best Perendale rams you can. You source the best genetics and true genetics; you get all the hybrid vigour. Later on if you think your capital flock is getting too far the other way, you go buy the best Romney rams you can. It requires a bit of drafting at mating, but that’s all, but to me it’s a no brainer. Note this argument is not as strong for terminals as generally the capital flock will be a different breed to what you are buying and of course you are cutting the heads off those lambs. You just need to be careful in evaluating the performance data and breeding values on those rams.
Note you can get a short term gain from simply just using very different bloodlines of the same breed, particularly with Romneys. For example if you have been using Wairere Romneys for 10 years, I am fairly confident that you will get productivity gains from using Waidale Romneys (almost irrespective of how good they are) for at least the first five years, as they are so different in blood lines (in effect hybrid vigour within the breed), the crunch time to determine how good the Waidale rams are is when Waidale rams are going over a flock that at least are half Waidale bloodlines (i.e. five years down the track. Naturally as we are talking about Waidale rams they are bound to deliver the production gains!!!
Crossbreeds that become closed flocks: What I am talking about here is a breed that starts from the crossing of other breeds, initially it’s a first cross, for example the Border Romney cross (which I think most people would accept is a great sheep so long as you can feed them well all the time), but later the first cross is crossed over first crosses and so on whereby you end up with what we know as the Coopworth, they become a closed flock where no more first crosses are created, in other words they stabilise it creating a new breed. Most Coopdale flocks are another example of this these days; similarly there are a number of composites, the Kelso I believe has been closed for a number of years, I am not sure about Tefroms. Romdales are normally simply first crosses (the rams that are sold at least are).
What one needs to be wary of with the closing off or stabilising of such breeds is the production from such sheep, the more generations you get into them, production can tend to wane over time, it maybe simply a levelling off as opposed to decreasing. Apart from the loss of hybrid vigour effects as your ewes become this other breed, the problem for the breeder is just a lack of genetic gene pool they have to select from, which inhibits their ability to make continuing genetic gains. The Coopworths were a classic example whereby it got to a point that the society actually allowed its breeders to go back and introduce a pure Romney or border etc to revitalise the breed, not everyone did this but a lot did. This is major issue for me in breeding Lincolns: there are so few around these days, it gives new meaning to line breeding, I am often treading water to maintain production, you don’t make the same progress, until you find that one ram that does improve production. Sometimes a breeder introduces a cross back in to offset this, however this is something a farmer can do themselves, if they do feel production is waning, for example I believe there is a good opportunity to put a cross of the modern Romney over coopdale, coopworth on indeed a composite ewes, and then go back over them with coopdale etc rams if want to maintain that type of sheep.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Waidalerams-Newsletter
Our Second On Farm Sale: This year it will be held at 3pm on Wednesday the 24th of November 2010 with around 150 Romneys, Southdowns and South Suffolks in total being put up for sale.
Unfortunately we have had to move it to the afternoon before last year, as Mr Giddings who traditionally had his sale on Thursday afternoon in Fairlie has moved his sale to 10am and taken it through to the afternoon as well. Accordingly it’s just not possible to get both sales in on the same day, which I would still prefer if I could, as it must be more appealing to farmers to see as many rams as they can in one day, but at the moment it’s simply not possible.
As most of you know I believe my rams are better anyway, so I hope you all will come to my sale the day before in any event. If you do want to stay the night before and/or after the sale, I can accommodate 6 or 8 people in my home, my mother a couple more if need be, and there is obviously some local accommodation, which I can book for you if you wish.
On Line Sale
Further to alleviate the difficulty of attending the sale, this year the Helmsman sale will be run in conjunction with an online sale (run by Agonline, i.e. PGGW as well). You will have to register in advance with Agonline and from that point you will be able to bid from home both prior to and during the sale. Those attending the sale and bidding will be kept up to date with any bids being made on line and vice versa, until there is only one winner at the close of the sale on 24 November. More details of how this will actually operate will be included in the catalogue.
The logical advantage of this is that if you know you cannot attend the sale, then as the rams will generally be available for inspection in November prior to the sale (I say generally as I will be away at the Feilding ram fair for a few days) you can come at your convenience and sort out what you may be interested in and then bid from home on the day. I again will be posting 20 second videos of all rams being put up for sale via you tube which may assist you in making a selection as well. As you know I am straight up guy, so if you can’t attend and want to know more about a ram, feel free to give me a call and I will tell you what I think.
Visiting Clients
I have been to see a few clients during the winter, but not many, quite simply because of the winter we have had, its been so bloody wet that I did not know from day to day where I would be putting up my next break for the ewes, it was just one big juggling effort for the majority of the winter, I hope we don’t have another one like that for a while. As I couldn’t set things up for days in advance I simply couldn’t get away to visit clients and those locally I felt were probably as miserable as I about the weather and the last thing they would want to do was show me around the farm. Ironically in the last fortnight we have gone from being ridiculously wet to needing rain at the time of writing of this, we missed all the really bad weather Southland etc got, but got lots of cold nor'westers, which has dried everything out.
I do intend in the next month to see as many of you as I can, some may see me before you get this letter. I will simply turn up on the off chance you are there as I don’t want to force anyone into thinking they have to entertain me, if you are not there or your busy that’s okay, but if you have an hour or so, I would greatly appreciate it as it gives me some understanding of where you farm and under what conditions and as such what sort of things you expect from my rams.
Worm Resistance/Resilience
There is a lot of gimmick advertising in this regard in my view, guys simply climbing on a band wagon to sell rams. I don’t use the worm star gene test, as in my view it’s a scam. The worm star test is approximately 80% about growth and 20% about worms, I am sure that if it was called the growth star test, even less people would be using it. The reason I say this is the most reliable figures you get out of SIL are the weaning weight and live weight 6 or 8 breeding values, yes your growth rates, so you don’t need a gene test to sort that one out. On top of this, those animals with good growth rates are likely to be those that are handling the worms better, hence the better growth rate.
I am looking into the Carla Saliva test that has been developed by AgResearch as to the merits or otherwise of doing this, it won’t be this year but if its not garbage like I believe wormstar to be, then I will certainly see how I can use it with my lambs come February or march next year.
In terms of my farming practice, I don’t drench the ewes at all from the age of being a 2th onwards. Since doing this I find that I may cull a few more ewes than I used to every year that are struggling to handle things at weaning time, but I figure over time this should diminish as logically those ewes that handle worms better will be those that remain. Also I practice the extended drenching idea with those lambs that I retain: I drench them more like every 6 weeks or longer even as lambs. I don’t do this with the culls as I regularly drench those so I get them killed as early as I can.
Ewe Efficiency (size of the ewe)
Again as a breeder I find it irritating what some people push about this. There is no doubt that Romneys got too big, too slabby and narrow, and I like most breeders have for some time now changed our sheep to be smaller thicker and stockier, but smaller does not necessarily mean more efficient, look at humans, some big people eat a lot less than some little people. If you get too small you also run the risk of lambs not reaching target kill weights, which from reading the rural mags it would seem inevitable that such weights will increase to perhaps 20kg to somewhat off set diminishing sheep numbers. I like to think that the size of my Romneys are about where they should be at now. Accordingly to make a sweeping statement that an x kilo ewe is the most efficient is just garbage, you must have regard to the ewe, is she a good doer and raising good lambs etc, that is what intensive recording systems that breeders like myself have which allow us to get rid of those who don’t come up to the mark.
Wool
My ram hogget 30 week wool weights will be a waste of time this year, they just got covered in mud, horrendous shearing. So you will have to rely on SIL and eye this year.
In terms of wool as a director and councillor of NZ Romney, we have been trying to make a difference but it’s hard work. I firmly believe we need to get paid $10 a kg to be viable, combine this with a $100 plus lamb and sheep farming may be profitable and compete with other land uses. It seems to me that the bar is set too low and on top of this it’s governed by shareholders of companies brokering wool, who are more interested and legally obliged to make money for the shareholders and the Company (which does not equate to growers). Accordingly the easiest way to make more money is pay the grower less and any rhetoric that they have the growers’ best interests at heart is quite simply not credible.
I don’t believe WPI will succeed unless global demand and the price for wool increases as well because they cannot get anyone to pay a premium for the wool now while providing them with an ingredient brand, back up, promotions etc, so how will they get it later on (unless wool price increases across the board, which if it does why be part of WPI?). If the wool price globally does not increase, then when WPI do demand a premium, I am sure that those same people will buy their wool for less money from someone else that can provide a similar story, back up and promotion. Wool demand has been decreasing as quick as wool supply. Its only recently where demand seems to be outstripping supply, with the recent trend of price increases, may it long continue.
The Elders/ Primary wools’ brand Just shorn is being marketed with a premium but not that significant and not significant quantities, and again Elders need to make money, so why are they going to give the maximum amount back to the grower. Its really become a procurement war between Elders and WPI. I hope they all succeed as we need it, but I am not overly confident about it.
I personally would like to see all farmers buy a niche carpet manufacturer (that is doing well not failing) i.e. make it a cooperative, so there is no competing interests to make money, as it has become clear to me with my frustrated involvement in the last few years, in trying to make a difference, that the only certain way to get more money for growers is to own the product to at least wholesale, then its not hard to pay the grower $10 a kilo. I would be very interested in your thoughts on this.
My Blog
Some of you may have noticed coupler articles of mine that have been published in the Straight Furrow; these have come from my Blog site: “WaidaleRams-Ike Williams”. I have got back into this in an attempt to improve my website’s showing on searches, so it comes up first ideally, if your not on the first page it’s a waste of time. Plus its an outlet for me to say what I think, as there is plenty in these rural mags that annoy the hell out of me, I hope to put something up once a week, but with lambing it has taken a back seat, but if you are interested in some of my rantings take a look, it might amuse you.
Some Key things to remember about Waidale:
• All flocks SIL recorded and Macro stock recorded
• All Romney ewes that have two singles in a row are culled
• DNA profiling for Footrot and cold tolerance of sires for several years now
• All ram hoggets are eye muscled scanned
• We consistently wean in excess of 150%
• All rams put up for sale are sound, genuine stockmanship is applied: we are not just about figures.
• Only sires that look the part and have the figures are used at Waidale, they must be both.
• Probably the most good looking ram breeder in the country!!!!!!! Got to have some humour yes?
Well I hope to see you most of you in the next month, and most certainly at my sale, if you want to know anything that I have not covered or have covered, please feel free to give me a call.
Cheers
Ike Williams.
Unfortunately we have had to move it to the afternoon before last year, as Mr Giddings who traditionally had his sale on Thursday afternoon in Fairlie has moved his sale to 10am and taken it through to the afternoon as well. Accordingly it’s just not possible to get both sales in on the same day, which I would still prefer if I could, as it must be more appealing to farmers to see as many rams as they can in one day, but at the moment it’s simply not possible.
As most of you know I believe my rams are better anyway, so I hope you all will come to my sale the day before in any event. If you do want to stay the night before and/or after the sale, I can accommodate 6 or 8 people in my home, my mother a couple more if need be, and there is obviously some local accommodation, which I can book for you if you wish.
On Line Sale
Further to alleviate the difficulty of attending the sale, this year the Helmsman sale will be run in conjunction with an online sale (run by Agonline, i.e. PGGW as well). You will have to register in advance with Agonline and from that point you will be able to bid from home both prior to and during the sale. Those attending the sale and bidding will be kept up to date with any bids being made on line and vice versa, until there is only one winner at the close of the sale on 24 November. More details of how this will actually operate will be included in the catalogue.
The logical advantage of this is that if you know you cannot attend the sale, then as the rams will generally be available for inspection in November prior to the sale (I say generally as I will be away at the Feilding ram fair for a few days) you can come at your convenience and sort out what you may be interested in and then bid from home on the day. I again will be posting 20 second videos of all rams being put up for sale via you tube which may assist you in making a selection as well. As you know I am straight up guy, so if you can’t attend and want to know more about a ram, feel free to give me a call and I will tell you what I think.
Visiting Clients
I have been to see a few clients during the winter, but not many, quite simply because of the winter we have had, its been so bloody wet that I did not know from day to day where I would be putting up my next break for the ewes, it was just one big juggling effort for the majority of the winter, I hope we don’t have another one like that for a while. As I couldn’t set things up for days in advance I simply couldn’t get away to visit clients and those locally I felt were probably as miserable as I about the weather and the last thing they would want to do was show me around the farm. Ironically in the last fortnight we have gone from being ridiculously wet to needing rain at the time of writing of this, we missed all the really bad weather Southland etc got, but got lots of cold nor'westers, which has dried everything out.
I do intend in the next month to see as many of you as I can, some may see me before you get this letter. I will simply turn up on the off chance you are there as I don’t want to force anyone into thinking they have to entertain me, if you are not there or your busy that’s okay, but if you have an hour or so, I would greatly appreciate it as it gives me some understanding of where you farm and under what conditions and as such what sort of things you expect from my rams.
Worm Resistance/Resilience
There is a lot of gimmick advertising in this regard in my view, guys simply climbing on a band wagon to sell rams. I don’t use the worm star gene test, as in my view it’s a scam. The worm star test is approximately 80% about growth and 20% about worms, I am sure that if it was called the growth star test, even less people would be using it. The reason I say this is the most reliable figures you get out of SIL are the weaning weight and live weight 6 or 8 breeding values, yes your growth rates, so you don’t need a gene test to sort that one out. On top of this, those animals with good growth rates are likely to be those that are handling the worms better, hence the better growth rate.
I am looking into the Carla Saliva test that has been developed by AgResearch as to the merits or otherwise of doing this, it won’t be this year but if its not garbage like I believe wormstar to be, then I will certainly see how I can use it with my lambs come February or march next year.
In terms of my farming practice, I don’t drench the ewes at all from the age of being a 2th onwards. Since doing this I find that I may cull a few more ewes than I used to every year that are struggling to handle things at weaning time, but I figure over time this should diminish as logically those ewes that handle worms better will be those that remain. Also I practice the extended drenching idea with those lambs that I retain: I drench them more like every 6 weeks or longer even as lambs. I don’t do this with the culls as I regularly drench those so I get them killed as early as I can.
Ewe Efficiency (size of the ewe)
Again as a breeder I find it irritating what some people push about this. There is no doubt that Romneys got too big, too slabby and narrow, and I like most breeders have for some time now changed our sheep to be smaller thicker and stockier, but smaller does not necessarily mean more efficient, look at humans, some big people eat a lot less than some little people. If you get too small you also run the risk of lambs not reaching target kill weights, which from reading the rural mags it would seem inevitable that such weights will increase to perhaps 20kg to somewhat off set diminishing sheep numbers. I like to think that the size of my Romneys are about where they should be at now. Accordingly to make a sweeping statement that an x kilo ewe is the most efficient is just garbage, you must have regard to the ewe, is she a good doer and raising good lambs etc, that is what intensive recording systems that breeders like myself have which allow us to get rid of those who don’t come up to the mark.
Wool
My ram hogget 30 week wool weights will be a waste of time this year, they just got covered in mud, horrendous shearing. So you will have to rely on SIL and eye this year.
In terms of wool as a director and councillor of NZ Romney, we have been trying to make a difference but it’s hard work. I firmly believe we need to get paid $10 a kg to be viable, combine this with a $100 plus lamb and sheep farming may be profitable and compete with other land uses. It seems to me that the bar is set too low and on top of this it’s governed by shareholders of companies brokering wool, who are more interested and legally obliged to make money for the shareholders and the Company (which does not equate to growers). Accordingly the easiest way to make more money is pay the grower less and any rhetoric that they have the growers’ best interests at heart is quite simply not credible.
I don’t believe WPI will succeed unless global demand and the price for wool increases as well because they cannot get anyone to pay a premium for the wool now while providing them with an ingredient brand, back up, promotions etc, so how will they get it later on (unless wool price increases across the board, which if it does why be part of WPI?). If the wool price globally does not increase, then when WPI do demand a premium, I am sure that those same people will buy their wool for less money from someone else that can provide a similar story, back up and promotion. Wool demand has been decreasing as quick as wool supply. Its only recently where demand seems to be outstripping supply, with the recent trend of price increases, may it long continue.
The Elders/ Primary wools’ brand Just shorn is being marketed with a premium but not that significant and not significant quantities, and again Elders need to make money, so why are they going to give the maximum amount back to the grower. Its really become a procurement war between Elders and WPI. I hope they all succeed as we need it, but I am not overly confident about it.
I personally would like to see all farmers buy a niche carpet manufacturer (that is doing well not failing) i.e. make it a cooperative, so there is no competing interests to make money, as it has become clear to me with my frustrated involvement in the last few years, in trying to make a difference, that the only certain way to get more money for growers is to own the product to at least wholesale, then its not hard to pay the grower $10 a kilo. I would be very interested in your thoughts on this.
My Blog
Some of you may have noticed coupler articles of mine that have been published in the Straight Furrow; these have come from my Blog site: “WaidaleRams-Ike Williams”. I have got back into this in an attempt to improve my website’s showing on searches, so it comes up first ideally, if your not on the first page it’s a waste of time. Plus its an outlet for me to say what I think, as there is plenty in these rural mags that annoy the hell out of me, I hope to put something up once a week, but with lambing it has taken a back seat, but if you are interested in some of my rantings take a look, it might amuse you.
Some Key things to remember about Waidale:
• All flocks SIL recorded and Macro stock recorded
• All Romney ewes that have two singles in a row are culled
• DNA profiling for Footrot and cold tolerance of sires for several years now
• All ram hoggets are eye muscled scanned
• We consistently wean in excess of 150%
• All rams put up for sale are sound, genuine stockmanship is applied: we are not just about figures.
• Only sires that look the part and have the figures are used at Waidale, they must be both.
• Probably the most good looking ram breeder in the country!!!!!!! Got to have some humour yes?
Well I hope to see you most of you in the next month, and most certainly at my sale, if you want to know anything that I have not covered or have covered, please feel free to give me a call.
Cheers
Ike Williams.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
SFF Landcorp and PGGWrightson, is this partnership benefitting the industry or just these three entities?
Like many people in the last few weeks I have been hearing and reading about this new three way partnership between Silver Fern Farms (SFF), Landcorp and PGG Wrightson, whereby as I understand the Government is contributing $59.5million from the Primary Growth Partnership.
The cynic in me is wondering is this a scheme designed to benefit the industry or principally to benefit each of these entities? Why do I say this, well:
The cynic in me is wondering is this a scheme designed to benefit the industry or principally to benefit each of these entities? Why do I say this, well:
- From my reading of the article in the High Country Herald dated August 25 2010, SFF want farmers on board, they can sign up to contracts etc, in other words, you must supply lambs to SFF to be involved in it. Sounds to me like a pretty self serving use of the 59.5 million put up by the government does it not? Further I have just recently attended an Alliance meeting and it would seem they have starting with what the consumer wants and working backwards for many years, surely SFF has been doing the same, so why all of sudden is there some amazing plan now?; and
- Again from the same article it would seem Landcorp's role will be in genetics and developing the database. In the sheep industry Landcorp breed Romneys, composites and Texels. I am fairly confident that there are many better Romneys in the Country than Landcorps, composites probably also, and you must remember that composites are most certainly not the hot property they were five years ago, as farmers have discovered that there are some major issues with them, there has and is a major trend back to using purebreds or first crossing. As to their Texels, I have not seen them, but a Texel breeder mate of mine, assures me that there are better texels around than Landcorps. So if this partnership is indeed for the industry good as claimed, wouldn't you try and source the best genetics available, get a cross section of breeds and not limit yourself to a small cross section as described above, which are arguably inferior to other genetics that are available in NZ.
- I also note Landcorps role is developing the database, what does this mean. Why does Landcorp have its own database in the first place, why is it not already all incorporated into Sheep Improvement Limited's database ("SIL"), a partially funded database by Meat and Wool (now Beef and Lamb), particularly given that it has been struggling for funding in the last few years Wouldn't the time and money in this regard be better served in incorporating Landcorp and other breeds and breeders into SIL who are not already there and then developing SIL to better serve the whole industry, not just Landcorp? (As clearly SIL is of value in some areas, but rather meaningless or misleading in others).
- PGG Wrightson's role is apparently to "advise farmers how to become more productive, such as the use of grasses for higher stock weights." This is a bit revolutionary is it not, I guess this is based on trials to see what grasses are better and in fact achieve higher growth rates, then you patent them, and sell these proprietary grasses, brassicas etc to farmers for these purposes at a good price, i.e AR1 grasses are not too shy of $5kg. I am being rather sarcastic here, isn't that what they do now, or are we going to be able buy these grasses for $2kg, given that $59 million of tax payer money being poured into this partnership, I suspect not. Are they using this money to carry out the research, which they now charge a high price per kg to recover such cost? What in fact are they going to do that is indeed different or new and as such a major benefit to the industry? Or is this just a lock of those farmers who want to be part of the SFF's contracts in that they now must also get their advice from PGG and buy their grasses etc?
Mr Gardynes letter to straight Furrow re my Glammies article
I have just read Hugh Gardyne's letter to the editor in the Straight Furrow dated 31 August 2010 slagging what I wrote last week. I enjoy a good argument and I hope a few more people have considered my article and Hugh's response, however his response does require me to point out a few things:
If the Glammies is to be used as industry beacon then it needs to use criteria that ensures it sends out the right signals as to what type of lamb we should be growing.
- 'The CPT trial is simply a ram versus ram basis, and is unrealistic to use it as a breed comparison. CPT state this themselves. I only quote the following CPT figures as Hugh is using this to back up his argument, but realistically you should not use CPT as a breed comparison as it covers too few rams. I would take a lamb finishers' word (who make a living out it) any day over a trial that to date has only evaluated a total of 193 rams.
- The meat indexes and growth indexes are about as reliable as the weather reports for South Canterbury at the moment. They have subjective economic weightings which realistically should be different for different parts of the country, for example growth rates are much more important for summer dry areas, then perhaps where Hugh farms. However if you want to use SIL data to back up your argument, then try breeding values, these have no hidden attributes or subjective weightings that indexes have which may distort the results.
- Even if you look CPT results for this last year: There are only two texels in the top 25 for the weaning weight breeding value, which I had assumed was one of their strengths, but perhaps early growth is as much of an issue for Texels as later growth, I am sure a Southdown could fix this for you Hugh!!!. Now look at the Eye Muscle Area bv and there are 14 Texel, texel cross or composite rams (which I assume includes part texel) in the top 25, in other words they yield well (assuming hybrid vigour is not totally responsible for the high yield). These two values simply back up what I said and what lamb finishers have told me, good yielders, slow growers.
- Even if you use the growth index figures that Hugh quotes, two rams with good growth, sure, one other crossbred texel is 18th, but the rest of the remaining 25 are not texels. The rest incidentally are all those breeds of the past that Hugh refers to and includes a Southdown which I would consider a new breed of the 90's that Hugh refers to, as they are breed that has changed to meet the markets requirements more than perhaps any other breed in the last 30 years, many farmers can testify to this.
- Sure the lambs are subjected to a tenderness test and they have to be below a ph of 5.7, but the weighting is 50:50 on yield and tenderness. I have seen the results for the lines of lambs in the last Glammies and the reality is, with a few exceptions, that almost all the top yeilders make the final. It is all about the respective weighting you give to the tests or lack of it perhaps.
If the Glammies is to be used as industry beacon then it needs to use criteria that ensures it sends out the right signals as to what type of lamb we should be growing.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Glammies, the best tasting lamb in the country or is it?
The Glammies, yes the supposed best tasting lamb in New Zealand competition. This competition has annoyed me for year or two now as it is competition whereby only top yeilding lines of lambs make it to the final, where it is tasted tested for the first time.
Lines of 20 plus lambs are killed through Alliance by those who wish to enter. These lambs are subjected to a coupler tests, the principle one being yeild. 12 or 14 lines of lamb, I think, make it to the final in 3 or 4 categories. It is only these finalists that are actually subjected to a taste test.
It is my understanding that it is only the top yeilding lines that make the final, which has been held at the Wanaka show. Accordingly it is a competition principally about the yeild capability of the lamb, the actual taste is essentially an "aftertaste" if you get my meaning.
I appreciate that yeild is important, but I also know from anecdotal evidence as a breeder of rams and as a finisher of lambs and from my discussions with high quantity lamb finishers, that those very high yeilding lambs are often very slow growers.
It just so happens that the exceptionally high yeilding lambs tend to be texels or texel cross, (who tend to be dominating the glammies as they yeild very well), are the same high yeilding lambs that a lot of farmers will tell you, that if you get them to the works off mum, they are great, but if not, they are not so cool, because they are very slow growing and accordingly take ages to hit the target kill weight.
This is not a dig at Texels, it is a frustration with our industry, these glammies are promoted as the bees knees, but are they really in light of how the competition is run, given there is my opinion and others, a strong correlation between very high meat yeild and slow growth, is this really the type of lamb we want to be encourage farmers to supply to our meat processers.
Those farmers who have a very short time frame to get their lambs to the works, need lambs that grow and mature very quickly and hit that target weight as fast as you can. Even those farmers who don't have the same pressures will probably find that they make a lot more money from lambs that say hit the target weight two weeks quicker than super yeilding lamb, logically you can turn over more lambs, less drench, less grass etc required as input to finish that lamb.
Finally ask any farmer that has been around for a 1000 years and they will tell you, (9 times out of 10) that the best tasting lamb or mutton is a southdown (or southdown cross) OR a fat merino, probably because very fine wool is generally associated with fine texture in meat. So what is the point of mentioning this, if you want to expand your market and encourage more people to buy it, wouldn't you get people to try what is in fact the best tasting lamb and not some high yeilding lamb that is adjudged the best tasting of the high yeilding finalist lambs. But hey what would I know I am just a dumb farmer!!!!!
Lines of 20 plus lambs are killed through Alliance by those who wish to enter. These lambs are subjected to a coupler tests, the principle one being yeild. 12 or 14 lines of lamb, I think, make it to the final in 3 or 4 categories. It is only these finalists that are actually subjected to a taste test.
It is my understanding that it is only the top yeilding lines that make the final, which has been held at the Wanaka show. Accordingly it is a competition principally about the yeild capability of the lamb, the actual taste is essentially an "aftertaste" if you get my meaning.
I appreciate that yeild is important, but I also know from anecdotal evidence as a breeder of rams and as a finisher of lambs and from my discussions with high quantity lamb finishers, that those very high yeilding lambs are often very slow growers.
It just so happens that the exceptionally high yeilding lambs tend to be texels or texel cross, (who tend to be dominating the glammies as they yeild very well), are the same high yeilding lambs that a lot of farmers will tell you, that if you get them to the works off mum, they are great, but if not, they are not so cool, because they are very slow growing and accordingly take ages to hit the target kill weight.
This is not a dig at Texels, it is a frustration with our industry, these glammies are promoted as the bees knees, but are they really in light of how the competition is run, given there is my opinion and others, a strong correlation between very high meat yeild and slow growth, is this really the type of lamb we want to be encourage farmers to supply to our meat processers.
Those farmers who have a very short time frame to get their lambs to the works, need lambs that grow and mature very quickly and hit that target weight as fast as you can. Even those farmers who don't have the same pressures will probably find that they make a lot more money from lambs that say hit the target weight two weeks quicker than super yeilding lamb, logically you can turn over more lambs, less drench, less grass etc required as input to finish that lamb.
Finally ask any farmer that has been around for a 1000 years and they will tell you, (9 times out of 10) that the best tasting lamb or mutton is a southdown (or southdown cross) OR a fat merino, probably because very fine wool is generally associated with fine texture in meat. So what is the point of mentioning this, if you want to expand your market and encourage more people to buy it, wouldn't you get people to try what is in fact the best tasting lamb and not some high yeilding lamb that is adjudged the best tasting of the high yeilding finalist lambs. But hey what would I know I am just a dumb farmer!!!!!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Hogget lambing articles in Rural News and local High Country herald
I have recently read a coupler articles in Rural News and our local High Country Herald re hogget lambing regarding a professor from and a study from Massey University.
I was somewhat concerned about some of the claims in there, including interalia a claim for example that a hogget lambed as opposed to one that has not, has only a 5kg difference in body weight as a 2th, no affect on long term longevity etc.
I am concerned about the claims being made, because if it is based on a Massey study that started around 5 years ago, then it is my understanding that this trial mated a mob of ewe hoggets to rams, and those that got in lamb became one trial mob, and those that did not get in lamb became the control mob as a comparison.
For those of us who do mate ewe hoggets, I think we are fully aware that 80 to 90% of our bigger and better ewe hoggets, or something around that figure, get in lamb, while the majority of the balance who don't get in lamb are the smaller and often poorer quality hoggets.
So what is the significance of this, well quite clearly if you compare those that got in lamb with those that didn't, over their life time, then its a totally meaningless comparison: as you are comparing on average bigger better quality hoggets with inferior poorer quality hoggets.
To ensure such a trial was of value and produced results of merit, a mob of hoggets would need to be randomly drafted in half, with one mob being mated and one not mated or covered with teasers, then those in lamb are then compared with a random mob of the not mated, or better still with those who were covered by teasers with the other mob. Just a basic premise one must adhere to end up with reliable statistics.
Accordingly for example any claim that ewe hogget mated is only 5kg lighter as a 2th than had she not been mated based on a flawed trial, if it is based on the trial as I understand that it is, then quite simply any conclusions drawn from it are probably crap!
I was somewhat concerned about some of the claims in there, including interalia a claim for example that a hogget lambed as opposed to one that has not, has only a 5kg difference in body weight as a 2th, no affect on long term longevity etc.
I am concerned about the claims being made, because if it is based on a Massey study that started around 5 years ago, then it is my understanding that this trial mated a mob of ewe hoggets to rams, and those that got in lamb became one trial mob, and those that did not get in lamb became the control mob as a comparison.
For those of us who do mate ewe hoggets, I think we are fully aware that 80 to 90% of our bigger and better ewe hoggets, or something around that figure, get in lamb, while the majority of the balance who don't get in lamb are the smaller and often poorer quality hoggets.
So what is the significance of this, well quite clearly if you compare those that got in lamb with those that didn't, over their life time, then its a totally meaningless comparison: as you are comparing on average bigger better quality hoggets with inferior poorer quality hoggets.
To ensure such a trial was of value and produced results of merit, a mob of hoggets would need to be randomly drafted in half, with one mob being mated and one not mated or covered with teasers, then those in lamb are then compared with a random mob of the not mated, or better still with those who were covered by teasers with the other mob. Just a basic premise one must adhere to end up with reliable statistics.
Accordingly for example any claim that ewe hogget mated is only 5kg lighter as a 2th than had she not been mated based on a flawed trial, if it is based on the trial as I understand that it is, then quite simply any conclusions drawn from it are probably crap!
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