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New Technology Lifting Production Mount Linton Station's new sheep genetics manager Hamish Bielski is helping drive production gains on the large Western Southland property. Farming editor Diane Bishop talks to him about how Alliance's viascan technology is paying huge dividends for the station and its clients. MOUNT LINTON STATION is capturing the rewards for higher meat yield using Alliance's viascan technology. Helping drive these production gains is the station's new sheep genetics manager Hamish Bielski. Mr Bielski manages 1000 texel and 500 suftex recorded ewes and their progeny within the station's 300ha sheep genetics unit adjacent to the Western Southland property. The unit is run as a separate entity, under the Mount Linton Company banner, but financially it stands on its own. The main role of the sheep genetics unit is to produce top-quality rams to meet the needs of the station's commercial flock and its large client base. "Farmers are demanding good value for money and they are getting that," he said. Mr Bielski, his wife Amy, a former Country-Wide journalist, and daughter Madelene, now 11 months, made the shift to Mount Linton from Taihape in April. It was during a chance encounter with station manager Ceri Lewis that they were offered this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "We bought 50 in-calf heifers from Mount Linton in May last year and got to know Ceri then my parents put the farm on the market," Mr Bielski said. "When the farm was sold we were offered a job here." Mr Bielski said he enjoyed the challenge of working in the genetics unit, which provides the texel and suffolk-texel (suftex) ram lambs that were used over the station's romney base flock. The suftex has the growth and length of the suffolk and the meat yield and hardiness of the texel. "It's a great combination," he said. Mr Bielski said the station, comprising two properties and 100,000 stock units, was gradually phasing out its romney ewes and replacing them with low-input perendale-texels that were to be bred on the genetics unit. They were a more robust and meatier sheep and better suited to the hill country, he said. "This will simplify our operation and if we can limit the amount of time the sheep are in the yards, then the gains will be huge. "By selecting only ewes that scan-in lamb as a hogget and scan twins as a two-tooth we will be starting out with a sound fertility base." Using ram hoggets, Mount Linton was able to tap into the best genetics, before the rams were sold as proven two-tooths. Despite their size, the ram lambs were capable of doing the job with dry rates consistently below 2 percent. Using Alliance's viascan technology, yield results could now be obtained from their progeny and this has provided objective data for the station and its clients. "For us, the benefits have been huge. "The rams we sell are genetically better and proven as two-tooths and are a more robust animal." Mr Bielski said Mount Linton had hardly been affected by the dairy boom because its 80 clients were spread from Southland to the central North Island. Last season, 93 percent of lambs from the genetic unit and 83 percent of the station lambs met the yield criteria and received Alliance's new loyalty payment. They averaged 57 and 55 percent total meat yield respectively, which was 2 to 5 percent higher than the industry average of 52 to 53 percent. This was a direct benefit of the high incidence of the MyoMAX gene in the texel and suftex rams and the use of CT scanning. "CT scanning 14 percent of ram lambs means we are identifying those families which are leaving animals with the best meat yield." Mr Bielski said now that Alliance was rewarding farmers for meat yield, farmers using Mount Linton sires could benefit up to $3.50 per lamb. He said a key aim was to increase the number of lambs killed off their mothers at weaning from 8 percent to about 30 percent. "This will reduce our workload and the amount of parasite contamination on the pasture." Mount Linton has a strong focus on breeding rams with high worm resistance, including being dag free, which was a highly heritable trait (25 percent), with the texels now included in the WormFec programme. "We've been able to identify texels with low worm counts that still grow and perform and don't have dags," Mr Bielski said. The ram lambs were exposed to high levels of worm challenge in an all grass farming system, and a minimal drenching policy ensured only the toughest survived. The ram and ewe lambs were drenched at weaning before Christmas, followed by another 10 weeks later, and then in the late autumn and winter. However, ewe hoggets that scan twins would be drenched pre-lamb if worm counts were high. The lambs were given a score between one (marbles) and five, which was very runny, to eliminate those with poor worm constitution.
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