50 | Karen Phelps RURAL PEOPLE »Pahiwi Romney Pahiwi Romney keeping the foot down Increasing genetic gain in the three key animal health traits is a real focus in the Pahiwi Romney ock, says stud owner Rob Tennent. Based in Otoka, the ock breeding objective is geared around breeding healthy productive hill country sheep, including for facial eczema tolerance. “We are Ramguard testing at .40 with pleasing results across a group of elite ram hoggets each winter. We have a key focus around building FE tolerance without losing any ground in other hard earned traits,” he says. Rob attributes some of this FE progress over the last 12 years to working with other progressive FE resilient ocks through linkage as well as the purchase of highly tolerant Romney sires from FE ocks testing at the FE Gold level. Genomics also play a part in screening rams to be tested as well adding accuracy to indexes for increased gains. Rob says that reducing dags is all about deliberately putting the ock in harms way in order to gather robust data for more informed breeding decisions. The Pahiwi ewe ock has a strict nil drench policy with ewes receiving their last drench as hoggets, if needed, as their lambs are weaned in December. “We run an 85:15% sheep to cattle ratio, which means there is no hiding from parasite challenge. Ewe and ram lambs are dag scored each time we record their live weights at weaning and in the autumn. Dags cost time and money. By breeding sheep less susceptible to becoming daggy clients can, over time, reduce animal health inputs,” says Rob. He says that gut parasitism is another major problem for sheep farming and it has been estimated that up to 30% of modern sheep production is reliant on effective parasite control. Rob puts this partly down to the shift from wool production to lamb production and increasing intensi cation, which are all heightening the pressure of worms on the farming system. While some years are worse than others for worms, Hawkes Bay has experienced very high parasite challenge this season, he says. “Unfortunately chemical control of worms (drenching) is deteriorating rapidly with the spread of multiple drench resistant worms through sheep ocks. Triple drench resistance in worms is now not uncommon and although new actives are available Phone: 06 374 4062 Aria: 022 374 4062 PO Box 129, Dannevirke 4942 Email: o ce@paewaimullins.co.nz Website: www.paewaimullins.co.nz If you want to settle down with good conditions and steady work, shearing or woolhandling, you could find a place in the Paewai Mullins team. We work for some great people and we have some great people working for us. There is always room for one more. Proud to work with locals like Pahiwi Romneys Get your insurance sorted 06 834 4820 crombielockwood.co.nz they are much more expensive and will only have a limited life before resistance get to them as well. The only sustainable solutions are through management and worm resistant sheep is a major tool for this.” Starting in 2017 Rob began worm FEC testing through Techion Group at Invermay. The group’s goal has been to make genetic improvement in breeding parasite resistant sheep. “As with all genetic traits the rate of progress depends on a number of factors including how long you have been selecting for this trait and how serious you are about it. To make progress we must put animals under selection pressure in order to gather robust data.”Each autumn the Pahiwi Romney ram lambs undergo an extended interval without drench. Once the mob average FEC is at a high level dung samples are individually collected from the ram The Pahiwi ewe ock has a strict nil drench policy with ewes receiving their last drench as hoggets if needed. lambs. The results from this work over the years have given Pahiwi Romney very accurate indexes for FEC and enable the identi cation of animals, which are superior for both parasite resistance and production, says Rob. He says sustainability is a big word in farming and breeding animals requiring fewer inputs is a key part of New Zealand’s future as superior meat and bre producers.
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