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LAMB SELECTION LIKE THAT OF ALL BLACKS Making the cut as a ram lamb at Mount Linton Genetics is almost harder than selection for the All Blacks. Mount Linton’s sheep genetics unit has stringent criteria and puts the ram and ewe lambs through a number of hoops before making the final selection. Out of 1,200 Texel and Suftex (Suffolk cross Texel) ram lambs born only the top 25% make it to sale. Mt Linton Farm managers, Chris and Jo Johns, alwa7ys knew they has top genetics. Now everyone else does. Mt Linton had the number one Texel in New Zealand for meat and another 21 of the top 200 rams in the country for meat trait in Sheep Improvement Limited’s Advanced Central Progeny (SILACE) results in May this year. SILACE allows across-flock and across-breed genetic evaluations of a number of key traits. Mt Linton also had 4 of the top 200 rams for growth, 14 out of 200 for terminal sire, 9 out of 100 for dual purpose FEC and 5 out of 200 for high performance dual purpose. The Johns see that nationwide comparison of nearly two million rams across all breeds as a chance for Mt Linton genetics to be widely recognised. “It is not just us saying we have got fantastic genetics, as SILACE benchmarks against the whole industry. SILACE has got to be good for both commercial farmers and breeders”, Jo says. The Johns took over the sheep genetics at Mount Linton three years ago. They are quick to credit former Mt Linton General Manager Paul McCarthy and Tim Smith, the previous Genetic Manager, for building the base for the genetic success. “They nutted out the direction in which to go and it was Texel. They wanted more meat”, Chris says. The focus has been on meat and growth, putting value on carcases. Under the current system of payment commercial farmers are not getting paid for those genetic traits. Mt Linton genetics will become even more valuable when yield payments are implemented by meat companies. In the past four years the genetic trend graphs for meat and growth have rocketed up. In 2003 the breeding value (BV) for lean weight (meat no fat) was 0.7 and 2004, 0.9. CT scanning with Innervision at Invermay since 1998 has been the driver of improvement in their terminal sire breeding. It measures the muscle and fat in the whole carcase of live animals. This allows top rams to be selected on the basis of the weight of muscle and fat. But it is not cheap at $350/ram and Mt Linton Farm CT-scanned 74 ram lambs this year, but the Johns believe it is well worthwhile. This gives extremely accurate measurements of meat on the whole carcase. And it is not as if they have money to burn. Mount Linton Farm was set up to supply genetics to the Mount Linton Company and to external clients. It is a subsidiary of the company but a stand-alone business and the budgets have to work. They treat Mount Linton Station like a client and have a successful strategy to keep the farm financial. This year 340 Texel and Suftex ram hogget’s were leased to Mount Linton Station to put over 26,000 Romney – Texel hill ewes as terminal sires. Chris describes this as a win-win deal for everyone. The station uses the top genetics available and external clients get the proven top genetics as two-tooth rams. “This allows both the company and our clients the opportunity to use our very best genetics”. After weaning any lamb that does not come up to scratch breeding values wise is off to the works. Numbers are reduced down from 1200 ram and 1200 ewe lambs to 800 of each. In early February all ram and ewe lambs are eye-muscle ultra-sounded and liveweights taken and this gives Chris the information to select ram lambs to be CT scanned, 74 ram lambs this year. “We are not just doing the best but a sample from each sire,” Chris says, “This gives us the most accurate meat breeding values for all our animals, both the ram and ewe lambs”. Chris reckons with good stockman-ship and the use of the ever increasing technologies available genetic progress will continue. Mount Linton has been working closely with Agresearch and Ovita researching and incorporating the new meat and fertility genes into their breeding programmes. In doing so they are determined it will be I addition, not at the expense of the existing breeding programmes. Jo says though the focus is on meat and growth they have not compromised on other traits such as reproduction and survivability. Anything not up to the mark on a BV for any key trait will be culled no matter how good it is in other traits. Likewise if an animal has the Inverdale, MyoMax or LoinMax genes but is not in the acceptable BV range it will get the chop . |
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