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Genetics, Feed lifts Performance As well as fertility, Mount Linton Station is concentrating on meat. Mt Linton is part of Ovita and AgResearch’s work with developing DNA detection tests for meat genes, LoinMax and MyoMax. Ovita’s DNA marker test for LoinMax is on the market but the validation of the MyoMax marker test is still in progress. LoinMax increases the loin muscle and MyoMax is a double muscling gene in Texels which can increase muscle in the rump and leg as well as decreasing fat. One to two copies of the LoinMax gene can be passed on. If there are two copies it will be in 100% of the progeny. With Myomax two copies are needed. Texel and Suftex rams with the Inverdale gene in the station’s commercial flock are DNA tested for copies of the MyoMax and the LoinMax genes. ‘So all his progeny that go in as replacements have got a fertility gene and preferably at least two meat genes’. With the Alliance meat company moving towards yield payments, Ceri believes Mt Linton is the box seat. Profitability will lift dramatically if they are paid more for the lambs through yield payments and can continue to lift the lambing percentage and lamb growth rates. Ceri says the stud farm does not hesitate to use other breeders genetics. In the AI programme this year 100 straws from a top Poll Dorset ram were used over stud Suffolk-Texel cross ewes. ‘We know we are right up the top with meat but to keep improving we need to increase growth rates as well’ Their sheep have the meat around the rump and loin (not too worried about the shoulder). Now Landcorp Supreme has been selectively over ewes to help improve the growth. ‘We don’t care what it looks like as long as it is the ultimate sire with the meat in the right places’. Producing a blackface terminal sire is consumer driven as farmers are wanting to identify the lambs as they go up the race. That is why Poll Dorset is going over the studs Suffolk-Texel ewes. Genetics alone will not increase lamb production. A huge investment has and still is being made in developing the hill country and then lift the stocking rate. Paddocks have been subdivided. The new grass area has been increased from 200ha to 450ha a year on the Downs area. A reticulated stock water scheme has also gone in on the Downs. With only 200ha of 4200ha ripped up each year on the Downs, there was not enough swede crop for winter feed and it took 20 years to re-grass paddocks. By having more swede crop area on the Downs, the hill country can be spelled and decent pasture covers allowed to build up for lambing. By increasing it to 450ha/year, the pasture will be renewed every 10 years. Ceri believes the benefits will far outweigh the costs. ‘It means we are able we are able to really crank along our lamb livewieght gains’. Liveweight (LW) gain is a key performance indicator for Mt Linton. They target 300g a day from birth to weaning weights by matching the feed pattern on the station to ewe lactation. They were weaning early to fit the feed patterns on the finishing farms but it was too tough on the lambs as they were too young. Their rumens were not developed properly and they were taking a big check in growth. ‘Now we try to fit the feed pattern rather than chase the markets’. All works lambs are finished off the station on Southland and Canterbury farms. About 20% of the lambs were killed off their mothers at weaning last year at an average carcass weight of 17.2kg. The rest of the lambs for finishing are sorted out into mobs for different farms. Those that will take longer to finish go to Glenellen in Canterbury to take advantage of the irrigation. Given the cartage cost they do not want to be sending lambs that will finish too quickly. Glenellen winters 1,300 two-year-old cattle which are killed by the middle of January. As the cattle go out the lambs come in so from mid-January to the end of May it is running solely lambs. Then it stocks up with cattle again. When Motu comes on stream next year the rest of the works lambs that went to Retreat and Waitoru will go there. Ceri is adamant that the station as a breeding unit comes first and won’t be weaning just to fit in with the other operations. ‘We don’t want the tail wagging the dog’. If it does come dry the station will wean early. Motu is a summer safe with reputedly a dry summer occurring once in 12years. None of the ewes are drenched on Mt Linton. Several of the stud rams in SILACE scored high for worm resistance. Faecal egg counts are carried out and young stock are only drenched when they need it. Lambing hogget’s and two-tooth’s get Eweguard. This year lambing was delayed three weeks and nitrogen spread over 5,000ha of the best lambing and calving country in early August. It has paid off and combined with good lambing weather the station is set for a good season. Lambing started with the Romney’s on October 1 followed by the Texel-Romney’s on October 10 and the hogget’s on October 15. About 3,500 ewes to a terminal sire at Waitoru are lambed at the beginning of September
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