2001 Newsletter
efficiency, noun: producing the desired result with a minimum waste and input.
“Bright Future for N.Z. Sheepmeat” that’s the headline for a story that appeared in this mornings Dominion newspaper dated September 3rd.
And it made us feel a whole lot better after first reading the back page and the account of the All Blacks loss to Australia in Sydney at the Weekend.
The good news for sheep farmers just seem to get better and what a change that is to be able to put pen to paper when the present and future outlook for farming look so bright!
We’ve been looking through some of our previous years Newsletters – and they make interesting reading. The last time we appeared to be fired up with financial enthusiasm was in 1978 and the quote said “the farming year holds more promise for financial success than recent times – lamb looks good – wool prices seem stable – beef is still climbing and for most of us spring has been one of the best on record”.
In 1980 we made no mention of prices, markets or the weather at lambing so it must have been pretty ordinary.
In 1985 we were hearing reports ad nauseam about the “depressed outlook for farming”. But Coopworth sheep were in the news with breed comparison trial results showing their superiority and MAF even going so far as describing them as “the most profitable breed”. This was also the year of the move towards “Farm Diversification”. Farmers meetings all round the country were debating what to do. At The Grange Field Day held early in the year Professor Coop made the statement “stick with what we do best – but do it better!” Worth remembering!
In 1988 – it was a very wet miserable spring and lambing in the lower North Island was not too flash. But the feedback we received from clients was thank goodness for Coopworths – their fertility, mothering ability and survivability highlighted the importance of these traits.
“Lamb will reign supreme” We said in our 1996 Newsletter – and from that time on most of our Newsletters have focused on those management practices that look at producing more lambs at the heavier weight in the shortest time.
During May/June this year Di and Bill were overseas and travelled through Canada, to the UK and their eldest son Tim’s Wedding held in Cornwall. They were there during the height of the Foot & Mouth outbreak and saw at first hand the impact this awful animal virus had.
Not only to farmers but the whole rural community – businesses – service industries – everyone’s affected. Can you imagine driving your car on a road in your district for 5-10 miles and not seeing a sign of any animal – no sign of any life, every building shut up, red tapes across locked gates. That’s what it was like in those areas where stock had been slaughtered.
Could it happen here? Heaven help us!
But we should recognise we are poles apart from the UK farmer and their farming systems. Their farms are smaller in size and numbers of animals and their marketing centres around the village market. Every town has a weekly market and the farmer goes to market to buy or to sell. It is generally accepted that the British Government knew 3 weeks before the first confirmed case was reported. This being the case it’s easy to imagine how widespread the F&M virus could be spread to all parts of the UK through their marketing system.
We can’t really see how that would happen in N.Z. and sincerely hope we’ll never find the answer to this question.
What opportunities exist overseas to sell more lamb?
Bill & Di came home really enthused and positive for our future. Supermarkets and Butcher shops are interesting places to go browsing in. They were most impressed with the presentation and packaging of the N.Z. lamb in Canadian supermarkets. In many places they saw stand alone chiller displays of our lamb that you would have to say was a credit to the N.Z. Lamb Company Marketing team. Everybody Bill spoke to without exception was very favourably inclined towards our lamb. The typical UK butcher shop was a different kettle of fish. Generally they stocked only British lamb and were very loyal to their local farmers with signs in their windows stating this and listing the local farms from where all their meat was sourced. UK Supermarkets is where you see N.Z. lamb – it’s highly thought of for price and quality and frankly we don’t think we’ll see many changes to consumers buying patterns in the cities supermarkets through protest action from UK farmers.
The payment of subsidies to farmers in the European Community over the next couple of years will come a head in our view. With the admittance of new countries to the EC in the very near future – the rich countries cannot afford the payment of agricultural subsidies for poor countries any longer – something has got to give.
But whatever happens to subsidies, to Foot & Mouth, to BSE or any other nasty lurking around the corner – we think we are sitting pretty – let’s make the most of the good times they will be around for a while longer.
SHEEP BREEDING TECHNOLOGIES
There are a large number of existing and exciting new technologies which will have a huge impact on sheep production in the near future. It’s not a case of if or when this happens – they are here right now!
Consider the following: The Dairy Industry in 30 years has taken the average genetic potential per cow for milk fat production from 115kg per cow to 160kg per cow – that equates to a genetic improvement of 1.3% for that trait across the whole nation. A similar improvement for sheep would have seen a lambing performance going from 95% to 150%. Instead we have gone from 95% to 110%!
It’s possible to make a 2% genetic improvement per year for fertility, liveweight gain and fleece weight because genetic improvement is permanent and cumulative.
We know this message is old hat to most of our clients but felt it worth repeating in light of the several enquiries we’ve had from farmers seeking advice on the direction they should be heading after a few years of cross-breeding and concerns about – where to next!
Our advice in simple terms is: forget the “genes” but focus on the genetics. Identify the traits that you want to make improvement in and select the very best genetics you can find for those traits. Our Coopworth sheep after 30 years of performance recording are now recognised as being at the forefront of sheep performance.
The “high-tech” new recording system Sheep Improvement Ltd. or SIL, for short, will help us stay there.
SIRE REFERENCING
Which enables direct comparison of the genetic merit of rams in different flocks. We have been a member of the very first group NZOSR established in 1986 and our sires have consistently ranked at the top. As the linkages are developed it will be possible through SIL to compare different breeds across flocks both in New Zealand and Australia.
DNA BASED TECHNOLOGIES
The most widely known application is animal identification, using the same principals as the police use to identify rapists at crime scenes. AG Research have developed a programme which will have wide spread use in the meat industry. This procedure will allow individual cuts of meat to be traced back to the farm of origin. Not only that, it allows individuals sires to be identified and things like breed composition. DNA Markers for sheep and the identification of the Inverdale Booroola and Woodlands high fecundity and the Carwell double muscling genes are other examples.
We have recently used DNA testing to rank the status of our rams to foot rot resistance with very encouraging results and in line with what we would have expected considering the selection pressure we have placed on feet over the years. On a scale of 1 to 5 – with 1 being least 5 most susceptible – our rams averaged 2.
CT SCANNING
The new technology associated with CT Scanning and the development of the Landcorp Lamb Supreme Breed programme is a very good example of what can be achieved in a short period of time. It’s a simple story: Start with a large population and select the fastest growing animals. Identify those parts of the lamb carcass that return the highest dollar return. Take a photo (with a CT Scanner) of those parts of the carcass and measure them. Feed all these measurements in to a sheep recording system to identify the top performing animals for growth rate, muscle area and fat cover. Breed from the best and get rid of the rest!
It really does work as shown at the Progressive Meats Lamb Competition last year where the winning pen of Lamb Supreme sired lambs were significantly ahead for weight of meat in the high price cuts (loin, rack, leg) and in dollar terms $8 per head better than the other entries.
So the principal really does work!
STOP PRESS: Progressive Meats will have a yield grading option beginning this January.
ET
These few thoughts on new technologies would not be complete without mention of Embryo Transfers. ET has been around for a while and we see even greater use being made of these techniques. SIL will enable us to identify our superior ewes and with a greater reliability factor built in. ET means we can rapidly increase the genetic merit of our flock by multiplying the numbers of top proven performers.
A new Australian initiative called JIVET (Juvenile In Vitro Embryo Transfer) which basically is harvesting eggs from ewe lambs at 6-12 weeks of age, fertilising them and then maturing them into embryos ready for implantation. One ewe lamb has over 100 progeny by 30 different sires at 6 weeks of age. The reduction in generation interval is quite impressive!
All of the above initiatives to further the genetic gains we have made in our sheep performance are very labour intensive and have involved a large financial commitment. But we know that you, the commercial farmer, will reap the benefits – that’s what it is all about!
To achieve the aims and goals we have set ourselves, it has been necessary to undertake some rationalisations of our ewe flocks.
The genetic base of our Coopworth flock is large – it has 33 years of performance testing behind it. Through Sire Referencing the very best genetics can be identified to make progress. With big numbers we can be ruthless and striving for structural perfection..(i.e. feet, jaws, confirmation, absence of wool faults and traits like mothering ability, foraging ability, survivability etc.)
In 1996 we first mated Coopworth ewes to East Friesian sires by AI to produce first cross progeny to sell to clients who had become interested in this cross. Some clients then expressed interest in quarter bred rams to mate to their quarter bred ewe progeny. We are now at a stage of being influenced by client demand! Some purchasers of East Friesian crosses are changing back to Coopworths – some are undecided and some see themselves going back to Coopworths in the near future. You can see our dilemma! We would have to say that because of the smaller ewe flocks in the two EF crosses we are unhappy with our ability to put selection pressure on them – as compared to our Coopworth ewe flock. From a genetic perspective we can’t see the same sort of progress being made and do not want to compromise our clients in the future. So we have decided to cease our East Friesian cross breeding programme from this year. However we will have half & quarter bred East Friesian 2Tooth Rams to look after our clients demand for their mating next year for selection in December 2001.
This year we are introducing a different pricing and selection structure for our rams. Again, it is something that has been client driven. The value of a ram is becoming more appreciated and a greater understanding of the potential for cumulative genetic gain is realised at a time when the returns for sheep are so high – and look to stay that way – that’s when clients are asking for the opportunity to select our very best genetics. This different selection procedure will allow this to happen. Please feel free to discuss this new structure with us and we would appreciate you letting us know as soon as possible your ram orders for this year.
