Head Shepherd Mark Ferguson

In this podcast, we sit down with Rick, a seasoned farmer whose parents moved to his family farm in the 70s as a child,  as part of the families succession plan. Rick now runs a self-replacing composite flock, focusing on early maturity, fat, muscle, and health traits such as worm resistance. Rick also sheds light on his involvement in the Farm Owners Academy as an accountability coach and how he's creating a legacy that his daughter can carry on in the future.


Rick lives on his family farm which he moved to as a young boy in the 70's when his father took it on as part of the family succession plan.  "From then on it's been a really mixed operation. Dad ran it with the approach of having many enterprises and spreading risk. We were doing the same based on that conditioning for quite a while... and soon worked out we weren't doing anything really well. [We were] just working ourselves into the ground basically."


So, things had to change. "l knew what i enjoyed doing, which is the most important thing in my opinion." After attending a production day and coming across breeding values for the first time, he was blown away. "You can dial up what you want, and you can just go for it. And they work." Rick decided that was the route to take. They now have a self replacing composite flock selling store lambs and surplus ewe lambs as breeders.


Genetically they focus on  early maturity, fat, muscle and health traits such as worm resistance.


Their challenges now are doing a better job of triplets and hoggets, with Rick saying they're 0.25 of a CS below where they'd like to be.


Farming in 575mm rainfall area, footrot COULD also be a big challenge, and is why Rick farms composites. And, of course, Mark poses the question if they could have a footrot free Merino, would they?


You'll have to listen to hear that answer.


Rick is heavily involved in the Farm Owners Academy as an accountability coach. Something he really enjoys. 


Rick also covers the great efforts of volunteers after the Kangaroo Island fires. And it wasn't just the recovery effort that was a positive from the fire. 


"Our daughter came home and spent two years with us." Rick says he's proud of himself for not 'putting her off' during that two year period. "I worked really hard in terms of getting the right mindset and I'm proud to say that [my daughter] is on a path that will more than likely see her come home to the farm" 


Rick's changes in mindset, outlook and farm practices is what allows a farming family going through a successful succession, not only from Rick taking over from his father, but also creating a place his daughter wants, and can, return to.




Head Shepherd is a bought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers to get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.

These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

This week, our guest is Ben Todhunter from Cleardale Station in Canterbury NZ. 
Ben's grandfather purchased Cleardale in 1943 and is named after its geographical "snow shelter" attributes. Cleardale is only 4 km from Mount Hutt as the crow flies. 

Stud breeding is in Ben's genetics, with his great grandfather founding the Blackford stud in 1924. In Ben's time, they had a traditional first cross English Leicester/Merino flock. But, since Ferg has been around they've been doing things a "bit different".

One of those things is breeding the Cleardale SX Fine Wool. A 21-24 micron sheep with crossbred performance.

"We'd been getting similar results in production traits from the SX fine wools.. finer micron, similar reproduction and growth rates." Ben explains.  "We've made the choice to go that way, and go quite fast that way. Given the way we're going with disease resistant traits its giving us confidence to go fast that way too" 

Cleardale has been involved with the Footrot breeding value since the start of the programme. And because of that, Cleardale has not only one of the most linked flocks on the footrot trait. putting them in the top 5% of the breed. 

Alongside the sheep, Cleardale run an Angus stud producing cattle for a high country environment. "Functional and efficient cows that have progeny that provide a first class eating experience" is the aim of their breeding plan says Ben, 

Ben recently visited the US to have a look at the genetics there and also their market chain for beef. Ben says it's hard to compare genetics as it's mainly grain/feedlot based systems. However they are bringing a 3-5 back to the country to give them a try. 

What impressed Ben in the US was the Certified Angus Beef Headquarters, a programme where they have a value chain trying to line up products to consumers and then the profits returned back to producers. 

Ben says this has led to an increased demand for the product in a country which already has the highest consumption of beef per capita in the world. 

One thing that's never too far from Ben's mind is value chains; working out which consumer sets are going to be doing what. Mark asks what Ben sees playing out in the future. 

"Breeding for the consumer." is very much the focus at Cleardale. But as ever with genetics, it's not as easy as it sounds. 

"You've got to predict what the consumer wants before they want it." Explains Mark. "Because if you want to put a lot more IMF in your beef you have to start now, because it's going to take time."

Mark and Ben discuss the importance of writing those bets down. "It's awesome when you pull the document up from 8 or 10 years ago and you can tick off those boxes, that there's an objective that's been met".

Cleardale is a great example of where commitment and enthusiasm can take a breeding plan in a short time. 
Head Shepherd is a bought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers to get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.

These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

Join us today for a chat through Richard Rains's career of 40 years of selling meat around the world. "It became a great passion and I still pinch myself every day at the success a little kid from the bush was able to achieve." 

Richard grew up in central NSW and was the youngest of four kids. When it was his turn to return to the farm, his father said to him, "Things aren't great. If you come home, it just means we've just got to split the meagre returns another way." explains Richard. "He did say, give it a go, if it works we'll all be better off. If it doesn't, you can just come home". With that safety net behind him, Richard started into his career in the meat industry. 
 
In the early seventies, Richard was head-hunted to go to a meat trading firm, Sanger. With Sanger, Richard sold the first beef to Korea that was ever imported there via government tender. He spent a lot of time there. "Thirteen times in one year. Quite a thing for a young kid from the bush," he says. 

After a year in the London offices, Richard was sent back to Australia as the business was struggling. Richard then joined the newly formed Sanger Australia in 1976 and retired 10 years ago, leaving behind a $500 million legacy.

Mark and Richard talk through how they built that business so successfully,  from hiring and training staff in the right way and also having a fantastic relationship with
Richard and Mark then discuss the future of the industry from the view of a meat trader. 

"Food is an experience, and how lucky are we to have these experiences," says Richard. "There was absolutely no doubt in my time, the more tags you could put on an animal the greater value you could get for it. Whether it was Wagyu, Organic, Natural, Grain fed or Grass fed." And the same still stands today. 

Richard believes we should be doing more brand marketing. But, not at an individual producer level. His advice is... "Rather than producing what Grandad did and hoping for the best, I strongly recommend producers to get a relationship with their producer and find out which one is going to work for them. They should supply into that processors brand."

Mark and Richard round the podcast off by talking about the Zanda McDonald award. "It is changing lives, and at my stage in life there's not much that gives me greater pleasure than being able to change the lives of young people in Agriculture."

Find out more here:
https://www.zandamcdonaldaward.com/
Head Shepherd is a bought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers to get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.

These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

Are you optimising your farm's production? Today we have John Young, aka Youngy, on the podcast. There are so many ways to optimise your farming business and sometimes that can be overwhelming. John, however, makes it all sound very understandable and achievable.

John's background is in farming but he now runs a systems analysis service.  Farm Systems Analysis Service has been involved in the development of AFO (Australian Farm Optimisation model). John gives us a rundown of what AFO is.

"AFO is a bio-economic model aimed at how best to allocate your resources to achieve your objective. What that actually means, when you apply it to a farm is trying to improve your on-farm decisions. So how you allocate your time, feed, and paddocks to try and achieve your goals."

The strength of the models is that they have an economic focus and a management focus. The weakness of the model, or the "challenges" as John thinks of them, is the challenge of how to represent biology well. And this has been the focus of John's career.

"The other sort of weakness," John says,  "Is that it only represents one type of year. My son, Michael has just about finished his PhD and one of the things he has incorporated is seasonal variation- or 'Weather-Year' variation as he calls it- to differentiate the variation from summer to winter, from this year to last year to next year. That addressed one of the major weaknesses in the model."

You can find out more about Michael's research here https://youngsfarmanalysis.com.au/research/

Mark and John run through the outcomes of some of the analysis John has been involved with. From fibre diameter and improving weaning percentages to the value of saving a single lamb or the economic value of ASBVS based on an individual business's current status. 

Currently industry indexes mostly assume that a farm system is a multiplication of an individual animal's performance. It also mostly assumes each trait has an economic value on a linear scale. John explains how that isn't always the case.

"The value of increasing litter size is much higher if your current litter size is 1.2 vs someone whose current litter size is 1.8. One is adding a few more twins, the other is adding more triplets." He explains. "So we know that the relative economic values vary. If we can make allowances for that, we can work within the bounds of what's required to make a good index."

"Coming up with the relative economic values is not a simple task, it's a little bit like the value of an extra lamb. There's a simple answer that's quite often wrong and then there's the more complicated answer."

Mark describes John as "The smartest person I know" and after listening to this podcast, you'll probably agree. 

We'd love to know what you think of this podcast, and how it has you thinking about optimising your farm and how you approach industry indexes going forwards. 


Head Shepherd is a bought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers to get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.

These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

Integrated pest management for blowfly, worms and lice is the topic of todays podcast, with our guest Alison Colvin. 

Alison has published work on practices on farm and has also been involved in a lot of survey work. You can find more here

Alison runs us through the surveys, which had some interesting results about incidences of flystrike, treatment trends and the effects of drought on lice, fly and worm problems and much more.

You can read the results for yourself here:
The Australian Sheep Parasite Survey

Mark and Alison then run through Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for lice, worms and flies.

Starting with a hot topic at the moment, lice. The results of the survey confirmed what they have known for a while, that the prevalence of lice on Australian flocks is around 20% but it is decreasing slightly.

"Introduction through purchased and stray sheep was the most ranked reason for recurring lice infestations. The second was not completing the whole flock at the same time and incomplete mustering. So there are still areas for improvement on our on farm lice control." says Alison

"Rotation of lice products is theoretically good, you should be able to get rid of all of the lice and not have any surviving lice building up resistance. BUT that relies on us using the products properly for lice prevention. Dose rates...all sheep treated, shearing equipment is changed between sheds etc."

So, if the lice treatment is effective, and you have good boundary fences and biosecurity regimes then you might not have to deal with lice for a good period of time. It's just making sure you're paying attention to detail with lice.

Mark makes a great point. "Flies and worms turn up anyway, whereas lice you can win the battle and remove them from your property. "

Mark and Alison also run through the key parts of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) that are important for worms and flies too. 

Alison highly recommends the website paraboss.com.au for information and tools for IPM. Although this is an Australian website, our listeners worldwide will definitely find something worthwhile on there.
 
There really is no avoiding these pests when sheep farming so this is a good podcast for anyone involved in your farming business. 


Head Shepherd is a bought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers to get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.

These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

One of the main topics of today’s podcast is the financial modelling of transitioning to a shedding flock from a Romney our guest, Prof. Paul Kenyon of Massey University, has been involved with.
Mark asks what instigated the work and what does the modelling show?

"In reality, coarse wool is costing more to get it off. Many farmers spend their whole summer shearing, crutching, dagging, dipping... controlling fly. As we move forward in the modern society it's harder and harder to get labour in remote areas." Says Paul. "Many don't want to work on a sheep farm when in summer, they're doing those four jobs over and over again."

Paul and his team modelled what it would look like financially to transition from a Romney to a Wiltshire.

"As you went through the transition and post transition, you're better off to move to a Wiltshire because of reduced costs."

"It also showed us, to be [financially] status-quo with a shedding animal, the price of wool had to be up around $5... and it hasn't been around that in a long time."

Because the only data available for the modelling was from the 80's and 90's, they are now working on updating it so it is more accurate to today's Wiltshires in New Zealand.

"That's a slightly different genotype than what's in the industry now."

"We've started a field study. We have a farm where they've agreed to leave half of the flock as straight Romneys and the other half have been bred to the Wiltshires," explains Paul. "We have our Romney control and as the respective generations are born, the Wiltshire crosses are crossing back over the Wiltshire."

They are now at the point where they have hoggets that are 7/8ths Wiltshire meaning they are one generation away from what most breed societies would accept as a full Wiltshire.  They are also collecting a huge amount of data during the trial.

Paul says "We're collecting everything from mating performance, puberty onset in hoggets, scanning percentage, NLB, NLW, weaning weights, wool traits.." and much much more.

"We're collecting the wool traits because in the 1/2, 3/4 and 7/8's, you're going to have to shear them to get the 'mohawk' off them. So we're collecting that out of curiosity. "

Mark asks about the value of the wool on a Wiltshire.
"At a 35+ micron there's not really much more of a hit you can take."

Because shedding doesn't take place biologically until late spring after a winter, Paul explains they're looking into how early they can pick replacements based on a "shedding score" and also how that first shedding score relates to their score as a 2th or 4th. Some interesting research!

You can read the full article modelling the transition here:
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/11/2066

This is only a fraction of what is a fascinating podcast with Paul. Listen in to hear about more great research. 



Head Shepherd is a bought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers to get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.

These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE