David Strong says the use of electronic tags has been a real help in his flock management.

Selecting your most valuable replacements, most valuable “keepers” and most suitable ewes to join to wool and meat rams makes good dollars and good sense.

David Strong, from Ladysmith near Wagga Wagga, has made large gains by selecting replacement ewes and wethers according to wool values calculated using fleece weight and fibre diameter measurements.

For example, using data from one drop of lambs and a five year average wool price, the bottom 10 per cent of unclassed ewe hoggets cut $32 worth of wool compared to $125 for the top 10 per cent.

Or to put it another way, they cut on average 1.77 kilograms of fleece at 16.23 microns compared to 3.88kg at 12.84 micron respectively.

“Apart from the obvious visual culls we use these measurements to help us select replacements that cut closer to $125 than $32,” said David.

Not only do the selected replacements make more money throughout their lifetime, they just as importantly breed progeny with higher wool values, one of David’s important breeding objectives.

Up until the last couple of years the Strong’s focus has been on producing fine wool and growing grain.

Due to a down turn in wool prices and lower than average cropping seasons, their focus has changed slightly.

They now join half of their merino ewes to meat rams to take advantage of high lamb prices.

“We now keep six and seven year old ewes, to reduce the number of hoggets required to maintain our selfreplacing flock, and we keep hogget replacements that we would normally have culled,” he said.

David started joining older age groups to meat rams but found it was more profitable to join animals with the higher fleece values to Merino rams and those with lower fleece values to meat rams.

Now he is using an even better way to decide which ewes should be joined to terminal sires that takes into account not only differences in fleece values, but also differences in ewe body weight, a key factor in a ewe’s suitability for producing a prime lamb.

The “dual selection” program researchers from NSW DPI and the Sheep CRC.

It is designed to achieve around 70 to 80 per cent of the possible gains in wool and meat simultaneously, effectively allowing producers to have their lamb and eat it too.

This is the second year that David has worked with NSW DPI and the sheep CRC to trial the “dual selection” program as well as the full integration of electronic ear tags for data recording, automated drafting and weighing.

“We now join ewes to terminal rams that are one micron broader and six kilograms heavier than the ewes we join to Merino rams.

“This allows us to continue to make progress with our wool while maximising our potential to produce meat lambs,” he said.

“To prevent the Merino flock getting smaller, we are aiming to use Merino rams with slightly heavier body weights.

“Our meat lambs should grow faster than before, and we expect their mums to have less difficulties lambing, as they are bigger and more able to give birth to larger lambs.

“Not only are we measuring individual wool traits and bodyweights with help from the NSW DPI and the Sheep CRC, we are recording ewe fatscore at key times throughout the year with the aim of improving reproduction.

“We record their pregnancy status, twins, single or dry – enabling separate management – and use the information to build a picture of the ewe’s reproductive ability.

“We currently put electronic tags in both the merino and XB lambs at marking to enable measurement of individual growth rates and possibly in the future to help predict turnoff dates and numbers.

“I enjoy collecting data on each animal.

“We are getting a better understanding of the relationships between bodyweight, fatscore and reproduction as well as utilising the variability within the flock to maximise returns.”

Contact Geoff Casburn, Wagga Wagga, (02) 6938 1630, or Jess Richards, Orange, (02) 6391 3871.