The first farm I visited in Masterton feels that EID is central to the operation's decision making and allowing them to farm with maximum efficiency. The farm carries 10,000 stock units. 6,300 ewes scanning at 194%. All lambs are finished on the property. Ewe lambs are sent away and come back as 2 tooths. Some ewes are also on other farms and he pays people to look after them on a per head basis, but he goes to do the major jobs. He also runs 240 Angus breeding cows, mated to Angus bulls, These are also finished on farm from 18-24 months. The cattle are predominantly there to support the sheep policy. All animals are EID tagged. Information such as singles, twins, triplets, mothers age, sire breed, drench/health records, weights and yields from abattoir are all recorded on the system. The main thing he uses it for is to compare weight on lambs that have received different treatments under the same environmental conditions, for example some lambs are given B12 and some left without to compare. He has also compared lambs on different pasture and lambs on crops were 3kg heavier than those on grass. He has also found that lambs grow better on some crops, however the yield is better from other crops. This has made him change the system to move the lambs onto certain crops just for the last couple of weeks to get better yields after they have been on the crops to improve growth rate. The automatic drafter is used at weaning to draft three ways depending on daily liveweight gain. If its growing well on grass he doesn't see any point on moving it on to more expensive crops. The automatic drafter was doing 500 per hr, however he has added more to the selection criteria and its now only doing 350 per hour this year. The lambs are weighed 10 days after putting them on crops to check they are improving, if they aren't doing well, theyare put on a different feed. EID is used to select replacements; selceting multiples, and those with good DLWG. 3000 are sent to another grazer soon after weaning and underperforming ones are taken out.
He thinks EID is the best tool on the farm for calculating, measuring and analysing data and ultimately informing financial policy changes.
The 
focus of the second farm I visited is Ram breeding. They are part of an improvement group that sells the majority of the Romney rams. This farm runs 2000 romney ewes, of which 800 are fully recorded. The scanning percentage has been around 170% for a number of years. They winter around 300 recorded ram lams and sell around 100 rams each year. They said they really need to sell more rams to be viable and worthwhile recording. All lambs are tagged at birth and remarks are noted such as bad maternal instinct, small, dead, weak etc which would would make them not considered for future breeding. The next record taken is the weaning weight, then the eight month weight and the fleece weight at shearing. A percentage is taken out at weaning if they have low DLWG, wool is marked, daggs etc. No lambs are kept from ewes that don't catch in the first cycle. Rams are sold in November at 13/14 months to use in March/April. Some are also leased out in February. All rams are sold on farm on a one to one basis. They also sell females for further breeding. Facial eczema is less of an issue here than further north, however it is still considered in their breeding and they have purchased a ram that has good values for this. They also winter over 100 cattle, 57 breeding cows and the rest are finishing animals. The cows are Angus cross Hereford and an Angus bull is used. The farm is usually summer safe however a couple of years ago they sold all the cattle due to the drought and only last year purchased cattle again. The cattle were sold to save the sheep. Again cattle are not that important to the farm.
focus of the second farm I visited is Ram breeding. They are part of an improvement group that sells the majority of the Romney rams. This farm runs 2000 romney ewes, of which 800 are fully recorded. The scanning percentage has been around 170% for a number of years. They winter around 300 recorded ram lams and sell around 100 rams each year. They said they really need to sell more rams to be viable and worthwhile recording. All lambs are tagged at birth and remarks are noted such as bad maternal instinct, small, dead, weak etc which would would make them not considered for future breeding. The next record taken is the weaning weight, then the eight month weight and the fleece weight at shearing. A percentage is taken out at weaning if they have low DLWG, wool is marked, daggs etc. No lambs are kept from ewes that don't catch in the first cycle. Rams are sold in November at 13/14 months to use in March/April. Some are also leased out in February. All rams are sold on farm on a one to one basis. They also sell females for further breeding. Facial eczema is less of an issue here than further north, however it is still considered in their breeding and they have purchased a ram that has good values for this. They also winter over 100 cattle, 57 breeding cows and the rest are finishing animals. The cows are Angus cross Hereford and an Angus bull is used. The farm is usually summer safe however a couple of years ago they sold all the cattle due to the drought and only last year purchased cattle again. The cattle were sold to save the sheep. Again cattle are not that important to the farm.
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