| 35 Melrose Stud reaching for the stars Stud ewes on mating block 2024. Richard Loader MEAT & WOOL » Melrose Stud Farm Maintenance Done Right We’ve been getting things Done Right for decades by always stepping up to the plate and getting it right the ¯ M J Get in touch today and get the job Done Right. tarbotton.co.nz 03 307 7065 DAIRY LANEWAYS DRAIN CLEANING RUT BUSTING TRACKS & YARDS DRAINAGE & MORE Melrose Stud was established 15 years ago, when North Canterbury farmer Dugald Rutherford was offered the opportunity to take over Edward Orr’s Corriedale sheep, setting in motion a journey that would eventuate in the development of Quarterbred sheep, bred for challenging conditions. Dugald farms in partnership with his wife Mandy and son Andrew on a 6000-hectare property 25-kilometres west of Hawarden. The property includes 5000 hectares of effective hill country grazing, of which 2000 hectares is fertilised, and 2500 hectares is considered pure high country that rises up to 1300 metres above sea level. Dugald says that by using the farm’s steep environment, he and his family have generated a physically different sheep than what they started with back in 2008. “It’s a different shape, different mentality, a strong foraging animal, and that translates into looking after its lambs as well. It’s no longer a Corriedale. I select for no drenching, no footrot treatment, no dags and no eye-wigs. All through that process I also wanted to develop merino type wool, which is where I have used quite a lot of merino genetics by AI from Australia, and some from New Zealand. I’m aiming for a really robust, and active sheep with fine merino wool. Our ewes are now averaging 23 microns and our hoggets about 20 microns, which is putting us into that bracket where Smartwool and even Icebreaker contracts are possible. I still haven’t reached my perfect wool yet, but we’re making good progress.” A recent enquiry from a new client prompted Dugald to review the advances the Melrose sheep flock has made over the past 50 years, with some interesting findings. “The client wanted to increase their lambing percentage but didn’t want to consider finer wool genetics because of the common myth that finer wooled sheep have a reduced weaning rate. My research found that for forty years, lambing percentage and wool weights at Melrose were a flat line of 85% and 3.3kg respectively. We always tried to buy the best rams available, but to no avail. The only genetic gain made was in footrot resistance through buying rams from Edward Orr who physically challenged them.” Dugald and Mandy took on Edward’s Corriedale stud in 2008 and began to challenge them physically, recording them on SIL but with no other flocks to link with they were an outlier. “In 2011 Mark Ferguson arrived in New Zealand and suggested we use Sheep Genetics giving us links to the variety of merino genetics in Australia and a new direction. Not until 2014 did we see lambing percentages start to lift with consistent results over 100%. This past season, admittedly a good one, it was 130%. Likewise, with the wool we’re now averaging 4.6kg fleece weight and the average micron in the ram hoggets has dropped from 27.7 to 21.5 last year. A search of available data by Mark Ferguson (NeXtgen Agri) showed the correlation between micron and conception or weaning rate is very weak, if it exists at all as our results demonstrate. We are excited about how much further we can go.” A selection of Melrose rams will be available in January through an on-farm Helmsman auction. Proudly supporting Melrose Stud R J PRESTON LTD Farm Accountants JAMES GORDON IAN COOKE E-mail: James@rjpreston.co.nz GRANT DAVID McCULLOCH E-mail: Grant@rjpreston.co.nz TELEPHONE: 03 358 5686 www.rjpreston.co.nz 32B SHEFFIELD CRESCENT PO BOX 39065, CHRISTCHURCH 8545
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=