Merino fleece grown by a South Canterbury couple has been judged NZ’s best for the fourth year running by the world’s biggest buyer of fine wools reports The ODT. Sth Canterbury merino farmers Barrie and Yvonne Payne won the Loro Piana Record Bale Award, for the highest price paid for a single bale of super-fine graded wool last year. Italian weaving company Loro Piana paid $2950 per kilogram of 11.8-micron clean merino wool, which would produce enough wool to make about 50 suits.

“It’s quite humbling to be judged the best in New Zealand four years in a row,” Yvonne Payne said. The Paynes had travelled to Beijing, where they would receive their award. The couple ran more than 3000 merino sheep on their 177ha farm, Visulea, at Maungati, South Canterbury. About 1000 of the flock are wethers, or wool-producing castrated males. The couple, who started farming perendales 38 years ago, switched to merinos about 20 years ago and have produced some of NZ’s finest wool . A micron is just one thousandth of a millimetre making Visulea’s merino barely visible to the human eye: an average human hair measures 60 microns in diameter. The Paynes’ merinos live in a purpose-built light, airy shelter designed to reduce the chill to which the sheep are exposed without them having to be kept indoors, and the animals are hand fed twice a day.

AgResearch scientists have played a key role in genetic research that will transform the future selection and breeding of cattle worldwide. The results of this work are being published this week in one of the world’s leading scientific journals. A paper describing the bovine genome and another on cattle genetic variability are scheduled to be published in the prestigious scientific journal Science. The presentation of this research, that will hugely speed up the rate of genetic gain in both the dairy and beef industries, is the culmination of a massive international research collaboration including scientists from NZ, USA, Canada and Australia. AgResearch, M&WNZ and DairyNZ all contributed to this very large project.

In addition to this, stud breeders and the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) contributed examples of local Friesian, Jersey, Angus and Hereford breeds. This represented a significant contribution by a small country. In return AgResearch scientist John McEwan says that this allowed NZ early access to data and, crucially, influence in the decision to prioritise the bovine genome definition over that of other species.

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One of the major differences between NZ and N.Ireland farms was the much bigger scale of NZ farms. The message is NZ farms have increased in size since subsidies ended in 1984 through consolidation after the withdrawal of some producers from the industry.  NZ recognised that one of the major costs that had to be cut was that of labour, and it is now common place for one shepherd to be managing 5000 to 8000 ewes reports The Beef Site. Additionally the fixed costs associated with machinery and buildings had to be cut. The way this has all been done is to use easy lambing/calving genetics and to increase the use of contractors.

Ewes, and the rams to which they are mated, are genetically selected with high positive EBVs for easy lambing regardless of breed, to enable ewes to lamb and mother their lambs without human intervention. The best farms are achieving a ’tailing percentage’ of 150, whereas NI struggles to get up to 175% reared with a high labour input at lambing.

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A new breed of sheep looks set to revolutionise the sheep industry by eliminating crutching and dagging. Innovative research by AgResearch scientist Dr David Scobie has resulted in a sheep with bare breeches and bellies, dramatically cutting costs for farmers. Scobie’s 12 years of research has been picked up by ram breeders John McDonald and his Cheddar Valley Station partners. Many of the 80 farmers spoken to by Country-Wide at last month’s launch of the Snowliner, Cheddar Valley’s bare breeched terminal and maternal breed option, say it is not before time. Much of the workload in running sheep is directly related to wool-crutching and dagging. While swinging a hand piece or dagging shears certainly creates a thirst, it is time consuming and the costs involved are simply a drag on the bank account. Scobie’s research that makes sheep with bare breeches and bellies a reality can change all that.

Cheddar Valley’s Snowliner ewe flock is made up of 900 fully DNA-recorded ewes, to which have been added another 300 ewes. Ewes are non-breed specific and have a bare breech “Snowline’ pattern from three through to six. Animals are being visually assessed using the criteria developed by Scobie and his Lincoln based AgResearch team.

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Farmers need to resist the temptation to grow lambs out to heavier weights, despite strong product prices, because they are not what the market wants reports Country-wide. While in the past two years there have not been the same penalties for heavy lambs, Alliance Group livestock manager Murray Behrent says the animal of choice for the market has a carcaseweight of 17.5kg-19.5kg. These carcases give a better consistency of product and produce a 1.8-2kg leg, which is the perfect size for the European market.

Behrent says as processors they can happily handle lambs from 14.5kg upwards, and can also sell between 10-12% of lambs being at heavier weights of 19.5-23kg, but they need the majority of the lambs coming through at 17.5-19.5kg. Once processors send a signal to farmers that they will pay you good money for 23kg lambs, farmers will respond by pushing lambs up to that weight. “So what happens? “You take the tonnage of meat from 14.5-19.5 up to 22kg, you crash the market that can handle those lambs and then you have got between 17.5-19.5, which is where you best market is and there are no lambs to supply.” So Alliance is paying around $3-$4 less for a 22kg lambs than for a 19.5kg lamb.

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 Cows are known for their big, beautiful dark eyes. But University of Guelph researchers have discovered it’s actually the whites of their eyes that are important when it comes to determining their temperament reports The Beef site. Their study, published in the recent online issue of the Journal of Animal Science, found that the higher the proportion of visible white in a cow’s eye, the more anxious the animal. “Cows whose eyes were about 50-per-cent white were very anxious,” said Sarah Core, a master’s student who worked on the study with Guelph animal and poultry science professors Steve Miller, Tina Widowski and Georgia Mason. “The more passive cows had about 20-per-cent visible white in their eyes.”

Anxious cattle can be dangerous and frustrating to handle and can also reduce profits and productivity because they tend to have lower weight gain and poorer meat quality, said Core. They’re also more likely to injure themselves or other cattle. As a result, identifying well-mannered cows is important when it comes to breeding. “With growing consumer demands for higher-quality products and animal welfare, selection for docility in cattle and other behavioural traits is beginning to play a key role in increasing profits throughout the beef industry,” she said.

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Merger advantages with AgResearch/ Lincoln University partnership:

• Unprecedented critical mass and concentration of expertise in areas  essential to the nation’s economic and environmental future. New opportunities to do wider range of research – from ‘blue skies’ to highly applied. Better integrated research effort resulting in new products and solutions. New research will increase the pastoral sector’s productivity (high value, safe pastoral sector goods) while protecting New Zealand’s environment. Re-establish emphasis on extending knowledge and technologies to New Zealand farmers.
• Effectively and efficiently combining education and research in a way the two individual organisations cannot. Increased revenue through synergies between teaching and contract R & D. Greatly raise the profile of the sophistication and range of land-based industries as a career. Higher brand recognition internationally. Enhanced ability to recruit top quality staff and students, both domestically and internationally. Producing more relevantly-educated graduates for the land-based industries.
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Lyndon and Millie Matthews have increased their deer numbers as models show they are getting a better return reports Country-Wide. Farmax models carried out on Puketira in North Canterbury have shown deer breeding and finishing is returning 20c/kg DM (on a venison schedule of $7.50/kg) while sheep breeding is generating 14.8c/kg DM (lamb worth $5/kg). Velvet stags are returning 13.2c/kg DM at a velvet price of $60/kg and 16.8c/kg DM if velvet is worth $80kg net.

For this reason Lyndon and Millie Matthews have reduced sheep numbers and increased deer numbers. The breeding hinds are put to a terminal sire for the fast-growing weaners upon which their operation is based, but the terminal sire is backed up with a Red stag as an insurance against stag failure. Deer Improvement genetics have been used for breeding replacements and as these genetics coming into the breeding females, they are now starting to see progress in Red weaner growth rates.

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George Davis’ retirement from AgResearch Invermay marks the close of a quiet revolution which will forever leave its mark on the sheep industry reports The ODT. A quiet, modest and unassuming man, Mr Davis would hate such praise, but it was his patience and ability to see the wider picture that resulted in him playing a leading role in the discovery of prolificacy breeding genes in sheep. Mr Davis retired last month after a 41-year career.

He leaves the sheep industry with a legacy that includes the discovery of the Inverdale prolificacy gene and the Woodlands and Wishart genes. Mr Davis was not a trained geneticist, but colleagues said he had the ability to create a team and inspire others who had the necessary skills. “Because I wasn’t formally trained in quantitative genetics, I was more open to look at these single genes,” he said. Basically he went looking for what he called freaks – sheep that had a natural genetic disposition to produce lots of lambs. When he found them, he worked with geneticists to see what caused their fertility. His discovery of prolificacy genes has the potential to change the face of sheep farming.

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Merino sheep prices appear to be enjoying similar renewed interest as crossbred sheep reports the ODT. The absence of drought, higher meat prices and access to meatworks has underpinned prices which, for annual draft merino ewes at Cromwell last week, were up to $25 a head higher than last year. At Omarama, prices were $15 to $20 higher. The Cromwell sale last Wednesday attracted a yarding of 12,000 merino ewes and lambs. Lamb prices ranged from $26 to $59.50 – paid for wether lambs sold by Galloway Station, Alexandra.

PGG Wrightson Alexandra livestock manager John Duffy said the noted lines of annual draft ewes sold from $55 to $65, with an offering from Bendigo Station at Tarras topping the sale at $65. He said some buyers had told him they were restocking after last year’s drought with merino sheep rather than a mix of crossbred and fine wool breeds because of the high prices crossbred ewes were making.

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