Sheep
· From the period 2000 – 2007 we eye muscle scanned our ewe flock, selecting progeny from those that had the highest meat yield.
· In 2008 we introduced the Inverdale gene into our flock. This enabled us to get a higher level of fecundity, without the need to “flush” ewes at a time of the year when feed is short. These new rams also had genes “myomax” and “loinmax” which further enhanced the meat yield. Since 2011 the flock has been stabilised and performance has, to some extent plateaued.
· However, only hoggets that have scanned as carrying twins, and weaning at least one lamb are carried through as replacements into the flock.
· Looking forward our aim is to grow lambs to heavier weights (season permitting) and seek to increase the number of hoggets that scan with multiples (twins) as these tend to have better lamb survival due to easier birth of smaller lambs.
Deer
· Originally our venison was produced with a terminal sire operation using Wapiti Stags. This gave us hybrid vigour and a large frame, but not necessarily a prime animal. One year we had 20% dry hinds from a mating to Wapiti stags and that forced us to change direction.
· For the past 8 years we have been using Deer Improvement red deer sires in an Artificial Insemination programme over a select number of our hinds. Initially it was only 50 hinds now we do 100 hinds. Yearling male progeny from the AI programme are mated to the other 400 hinds.
· Genetic improvement is a slow process as it takes at least 5 years before you really start to see the impact over a significant number of animals. It is only in the last 2 years that we have been able to start doing AI over animals that have been produced from the earlier programmes.
· Regardless of the AI programme we still seem to get a normal “bell shaped” population distribution across our annual weaner “crop” i.e there are some exceptional animals but also some that are at the lighter end of the range. The aim is to lift the average weight over time and reduce the “tail” of lighter animals. To this end the lightest 1/3 of the female progeny are carried through to a 50kg slaughter weight and killed, only the top 2/3 are retained as replacements.
· Our greatest challenge is now to feed our weaners to a level that allows them to achieve their genetic potential. The greatest opportunities for this appear to be while they are still on a lactating hind and in the autumn after weaning. We are looking at feeding grain to the hinds in late lactation to try and increase weaning weights.
· From the period 2000 – 2007 we eye muscle scanned our ewe flock, selecting progeny from those that had the highest meat yield.
· In 2008 we introduced the Inverdale gene into our flock. This enabled us to get a higher level of fecundity, without the need to “flush” ewes at a time of the year when feed is short. These new rams also had genes “myomax” and “loinmax” which further enhanced the meat yield. Since 2011 the flock has been stabilised and performance has, to some extent plateaued.
· However, only hoggets that have scanned as carrying twins, and weaning at least one lamb are carried through as replacements into the flock.
· Looking forward our aim is to grow lambs to heavier weights (season permitting) and seek to increase the number of hoggets that scan with multiples (twins) as these tend to have better lamb survival due to easier birth of smaller lambs.
Deer
· Originally our venison was produced with a terminal sire operation using Wapiti Stags. This gave us hybrid vigour and a large frame, but not necessarily a prime animal. One year we had 20% dry hinds from a mating to Wapiti stags and that forced us to change direction.
· For the past 8 years we have been using Deer Improvement red deer sires in an Artificial Insemination programme over a select number of our hinds. Initially it was only 50 hinds now we do 100 hinds. Yearling male progeny from the AI programme are mated to the other 400 hinds.
· Genetic improvement is a slow process as it takes at least 5 years before you really start to see the impact over a significant number of animals. It is only in the last 2 years that we have been able to start doing AI over animals that have been produced from the earlier programmes.
· Regardless of the AI programme we still seem to get a normal “bell shaped” population distribution across our annual weaner “crop” i.e there are some exceptional animals but also some that are at the lighter end of the range. The aim is to lift the average weight over time and reduce the “tail” of lighter animals. To this end the lightest 1/3 of the female progeny are carried through to a 50kg slaughter weight and killed, only the top 2/3 are retained as replacements.
· Our greatest challenge is now to feed our weaners to a level that allows them to achieve their genetic potential. The greatest opportunities for this appear to be while they are still on a lactating hind and in the autumn after weaning. We are looking at feeding grain to the hinds in late lactation to try and increase weaning weights.