Hawke's Bay

After seeing the New year in at Taupo I headed over to Hawke's Bay. The first meeting I had in this area was with a company that is now nearly as active in the UK as it is in NZ. However the nucleus and multiplier flocks are on a much larger scale in NZ (10X) to reflect the farm sizes in each country and the NZ flocks were developed a few years before the UK flocks. The main reason they are working in the UK is to try and get a year round supply of lamb. NZ lambs from June (some in Hawke’s Bay area) through to October (in the South). However, most lamb in September with most lambs sold between December and April.
The focus of the maternal breeding programme combines fertility and survival rates to deliver an efficient and profitable ewe system. The targeted breeding objectives are; lamb as a hogget, rear two as a two tooth and onwards, longevity (lambs over lifetime/liveweight), efficiently wean their body weight plus, all of these contribute to a more efficient sheep system. The focus of the terminal breeding programme is designed to provide high performance finishing lambs which excel in meat characteristics. These include; to lamb unassisted, fast growth and early maturity, efficient conversion of grass to carcass and selection for market required meat characteristics. Many of these are essential in reducing Greenhouse gas emissions from the flock e.g. lamb them as hoggets, number of lambs (fertility), ewe liveweight, longevity, efficient conversion of grass to carcass.
The flocks are recorded and DNA pedigree tests are used to get the parentage at marking when they are also EID tagged. EID has been used on some of these farms for 12years. Dock weight, weaning weight, post weaning weight etc is all recorded. All nucleus flock lambs are weighed at birth and aim for 5kg birth weight.
We discussed feed conversion rates and this is an area they would like to look into and conversion efficiency is next on the agenda. They have carried out trials on improving efficiency of the rumen e.g. vitamin to reduce stress at weaning and different weaning treatments e.g. early weaning to develop rumen. They have also carried out many eating quality trials to see the variation in the breed and have worked with organisations on developing the meat quality DNA marker. This is all considered in the ram selection. They have also looked at meat eating quality and taste on five different forages including high sugar grass, lucerne, chicory and brassicas. It is obvious from driving around that brasicas are used widely to finish lambs and I have been surprised by the landscape that they are planted on.