St Leger's earliest ram breeding production goals targeted
- Fertility ewes tw only etc
- Mothering - scoring mothers when tagging lambs, culling any inattentive ewes
- Wean weights
- Growth rates
- Wool hogget fleece weights
- Side sampling incoming sires
Rams available in 2020
While attention to these key goals remain, innovative and now commercially available technology has been integrated into flock management. This allows more progress in breeding a truly dual purpose sheep.
- Shepherd Complete- A complete package from Zoetis of DNA testing for the objective of efficient genetic gain. Includes parentage on all lambs, 5k on 20% of ram hogget’s and 50k testing on all new sires.
- EID- All lambs are EID tagged at docking
- Ani-Mate- Computer generated mating lists from Abacus Bio which allow us to maximise genetic gain while minimising inbreeding.
- Parasites- There is a nil drenching policy in mature stock with ewes getting their last drench pre lamb as a hogget.
- FE- We have been Ramguard testing at .6 since 2018
