Head Shepherd

This week on the podcast we have Professor Emeritus of Animal Science at Cornell University, Alan Bell, discussing his recent paper ‘Animal science Down Under: a history of research, development and extension in support of Australia’s livestock industries’. 

In this paper, Alan discusses how back in 1788, as you may have guessed, “There wasn't any real systematic research done on the livestock side,” with the advances in the industry being achieved by the producers. He says, “It was really the innovative farmers, who were battling in a very foreign environment, to make money eventually, that had some wonderful successes.”

Alan runs through the following years, with the establishment of agricultural departments and colleges, before and between the two World Wars, with CSIRO being one of the most influential. 

Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, agriculture research was in what Alan calls the ‘golden years’. A time for practically limitless scientific exploration, mostly funded by the Wool Board, but also encouraged by strong political support and led by particular scientific ‘visionaries’. “Maybe that's just nostalgia, but I tell people that I began my career at the end of the golden era,” says Alan.

The 1970s and 1980s brought a more structured approach, with markets being more uncertain and funding being allocated elsewhere. However, through government initiatives and the introduction of levies, great research was still performed. For example, the beginnings of genomics for production and health traits. 

Mark and Alan finish off by discussing the current state of research in agriculture and where it’s heading in the future.

This is a wonderful podcast and a must-listen for anyone interested in agriculture, history and the science that built the foundations of a great industry.

You can find Alan's paper here:

https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/pdf/AN19161

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

When the going gets tough on farm, it's the tough who get going. But what fuels that resilience? 

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast, we have Kane Brisco of FarmFitNZ to discuss mental wellbeing, farm fitness and community.

In his late twenties, Kane found himself in a tough spot. He’d stopped participating in his local rugby team and his passion for farming had faded, so he didn’t know what to do with himself. Instead of packing up and changing careers, Kane took a step back and worked out what he needed to do to get himself out of that funk.

Each day, Kane starts with a routine that sets him up for success. Firstly, feed yourself right, says Kane. “You're fuelling up, it's like putting gas in your motorbike tank, you know? You don't expect it to run on empty all day, so we can't expect to do it ourselves."

Next, start with a purpose. Kane recommends writing down a list of what you want to achieve that day, stick to it and - most importantly - don’t forget to tick things off as you complete them.  “Everybody needs a purpose when they get out of bed, so for me, that's just a simple way to get a bit of clarity on the day. It takes about two minutes, not even that some days. It's a good feeling to cross them off, you know, a bit of satisfaction even on a tough day if you can just cross one of them off. It does perk you up over time,” shares Kane.

And, of course, we couldn’t talk to the founder of FarmFitNZ without discussing the influence of physical health on mental health. At his worst, Kane realised that when his physical fitness was low, so was his mental resilience. “It was that time in my life that made me realise how important it is to be physically prepared for a physical job and how that ties into your mental capability and your frame of mind and I guess your mindset and ultimately your mental health. They both work together and they're both linked,” says Kane.

Kane began running a ‘boot camp’ from his driveway for local farmers, giving them an opportunity to build strength and resilience, as well as generating that great rural community spirit. He explains, “It was just a matter of putting it out to the local community, to get them off the farm to my driveway basically to get a sweat on and test the lungs out and get together.”

“A lot of them had never done that before, something formal like that. But most of all, it was the communication with the other farmers, their neighbours from 5 km down the road that they didn't see too often … just having a catch-up, sharing what was going on regularly with each other's lives,” says Kane. “It wasn’t as much about getting fit and strong. It was actually just sharing with each other and creating those bonds within the community. You couldn't put a price on that if you tried."

If you’d like to know more, Kane has recently written a book about his journey. Find out more here: https://farmfitnzshop.com/.

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

Replacement rates in your sheep flock are determined by your ewe losses and your culling decisions. For every ewe lamb you choose to keep, that’s one less to sell. 

In this week's podcast, our guest, Associate Professor Anne Ridler, discusses the findings from her recent study on ewe wastage in New Zealand sheep farming. Anne’s research found that, on average, 28 to 30 per cent of ewes leave the flock annually in New Zealand. The study aimed to understand when and why ewes exit the flock and how to reduce that wastage. 

Let's break those numbers down … say you have 1,000 ewes at mating time:

• At scanning time, of those 1,000, 33 will leave the flock because they’re dry. 
• Before set stocking, another 18 ewes will go due to non-reproductive reasons such as low BCS and 17 will die in this time. So, of your original 1,000, you have 932 left by the start of lambing. 
• Lambing is the highest risk period, with two-thirds of your losses occurring during this period. The average is 3.7 per cent. So, that’s another 37 ewes leaving the flock up until mid-lactation/docking, leaving you with 895 ewes.
• If you decide to cull wet-dries at weaning, the average is 3.8 per cent, meaning another 38 ewes leave the flock, reducing your number to 858. In addition, another 33 ewes exit the flock between docking/tailing and breeding in year two, some of which will be wet-dries (on average, across all the farms), some will be culled for other reasons and some will die. This takes the flock down to 825. 
• Then, post-weaning, based on udder issues, age, teeth or other decisions, farmers choose to cull, on average, 15.4%. That leaves you with 708 ewes. So, 292 replacements need to enter the flock to get back to 1,000 ewes for breeding.

Whilst these numbers might seem a bit confronting, they give a great insight into how you can reduce the number of replacements you require.

With most losses occurring during lambing, Anne suggests this could be an area to focus on. Feeding ewes well during pregnancy (to avoid metabolic issues) is a big part of keeping your ewes alive. But there are other things you can do, such as paddock audits and cast beats. 

Mark and Anne also discuss other options such as keeping wet-dries and putting them to a terminal ram.

We would be interested to hear what you base your culling decisions on. Is it age? Do you give your wet-dries a second chance? Let us know.

The study from which this information was derived was funded by the Massey-Lincoln and Agricultural Trust and done in collaboration with Lincoln University.

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

In this current climate, should you be looking for ways to save money on farm? Or should you be looking at upping your production to cover rising costs?

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast, we hope to answer those questions for you.

Our guest this week, Tim Leeming, is well known for his precision lambing and we’ve had him as a guest on the podcast before (go check that one out here). 

In this episode, Tim discusses his strategies for farming success. “When it comes to your production system - when it comes to understanding what drives that in your business - whether you've got paddocks that need to be subdivided, whether you've got soil fertility that needs improving, pasture composition that needs improving … If you're a good farm manager and have a reasonable base knowledge of how the job rolls … it's not rocket science.”

Tim and Ferg discuss the mindset behind cutting costs vs upping production. While the current advice may be to not join ewe lambs or containment feed, Tim believes in identifying where profit margins exist for a job done well. “If you do a bad job, of course, the economics of those two things might be pretty ordinary, but if you do it well, the margins are there. They're proven margins. We've seen it,” says Tim.

Tim emphasises the need for clear targets and disciplined execution. “We've got evidence of it, that if you manage your nutrition right in ewe lambs and hit these targets and do all the right things, guess what, you'll get a bloody good result, and those sheep will pay you dividends for the rest of their life on your farm because you've done that well.”

Discipline is a big theme throughout this week's podcast, with Tim collecting data when the opportunity presents itself (for example, ewe body condition when ewes are in the yards). “If you think about a mob of ewes, for instance, and how many times that they might visit the stockyards over the year. There are probably at least eight times in a year that those animals will be in a yard facility and generally, they will be going up a drafting race or drenching race or through a sheep handler,” he explains.

For Tim, consistently doing the small things well sets a foundation for long-term success. “It's a two, four, five-minute job to get a line in the sand on where that condition score of that mob is at that particular time. I'm like a dog with a bone. I’m very, very persistent on making sure that we record that, every time we're bringing those livestock in the yards,” says Tim. “It’s so important in your decision-making and your management. So, you know, that is a discipline thing.” 

Tim has a huge passion for farming and there are some great takeaways from this podcas

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

Our guest on the podcast this week is Bonnie Skinner. 

Bonnie is the CEO of Sheep Producers Australia (SPA), a levy board that advocates for a better future for Australia’s sheep industry. They do this in a multitude of ways: connecting farmers, consumers and government bodies. They advocate for better outcomes for farmers and direct levy investments towards research, development and industry services.

In this episode, Bonnie and Mark discuss the current challenges faced by the industry - be it artificial proteins, climate change or getting new entrants into the industry - and also what the future holds for lamb and wool producers. 

It’s not all doom and gloom, explains Bonnie: “In terms of providing that light on the hill, there is an immense opportunity for lamb as a protein, if we can continue to meet the needs of our consumers.” 

“Of course, we are already world-renowned for a high-quality, very consistent product in the industry. We know we can continue to improve on that. But what is the customer willing to pay for? How much room is there to really drive that price up, particularly at a retail level?” These are the questions that SPA are asking, and working towards answering, with industry support. 

Another issue faced by the industry is the uptake of new technologies and practices. One example being scanning for multiples. Despite the evidence that it will improve profitability and production on-farm, only 42% of Australian producers scan their ewes and, of these, 69% scan for dry, single and multiple foetuses.

“We've got 10-15% of producers at the top, the early adopters. They are taking up all of these opportunities,” explains Bonnie. “Then we have a good subset of producers underneath that, who are interested [but are not taking the next steps towards adoption]. How do we encourage producers to take up these practices?”

In this podcast, Bonnie explains the scope of SPA’s work for the industry: from identifying required research, right through to farmer implementation, and everything in between.

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

With greater unpredictability in our weather patterns, managing pastures is an ever-evolving challenge for farmers. This week on the podcast we hope to help with some handy advice from consultant, Darren Gordon.

This week we cover:

• The importance of pasture and feed-quality testing
• The genetics of fat and feed efficiency 
• Maximising profit from pasture

Darren emphasises the importance of testing your pastures and feed, including the neutral detergent fibre (NDF). “Just test it, otherwise it's calculated guesswork,” he says. “Test, then test again. And the NDF, especially in your hays, can change intake, especially for younger sheep.” 

Knowing the NDF of your feed is vital, as it directly correlates with the digestibility and nutritional value of the feed. Too much NDF can impede digestibility. This leads to reduced feed intake, meaning no matter how good it is, your stock cannot consume enough of it to get the nutrients they need.

Once you know where your feed is at you can allocate it to the most appropriate stock class, where it will make the greatest impact. Darren runs us through different feed type examples and which stock class would benefit most. For example, feeding your lighter twin-bearing ewes in late pregnancy yields some of the greatest returns.

Darren also discusses containment feeding and the benefits to your stock as well as your pastures and soils. If you expect that you may need to contain stock, he emphasises the importance of planning ahead, rather than deciding to do it once your paddocks are already “ruined”.

“Start thinking about it now, make some preparations, look at your water quality, look at your water quantity and what you're gonna need to do if you do have to go into containment,” he explains. “Once it gets under a thousand [FOO], you're only getting two and a half to three ME out of the paddock,” meaning you get immediate returns from containment feeding.

Darren then turns the tables and asks Ferg a few questions about how genetics can also help with managing feed deficits on-farm. You’ll have to tune in for that answer! 

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

This week on the podcast, we’re talking about Flexolt®, a revolutionary new oral treatment for lice control in sheep.

Our guests are Dr Jane Morrison and Dr Hamish Pike from our fantastic sponsors, MSD Animal Health.

Flexolt is the first-ever oral lice treatment for sheep, giving you the ultimate flexibility when it comes to treating your flock. It can be used rain or shine, with any length of wool, revolutionising how and when you can administer a sheep lice treatment.

Flexolt marks a significant leap forward in sheep lice treatment, offering farmers unparalleled flexibility and effectiveness in managing lice outbreaks. In the podcast, Jane and Hamish discuss how it works and how to get the best results from this great new product. 

Hamish and Jane also run us through the life cycle of lice, giving you a better understanding of what you’re treating and why clean musters and quarantine are so important.

Tune in to learn more about how this new product works, and also to gain a deeper understanding of the biology, and impact, of lice in your sheep. 

Flexolt is currently available through rural retailers in Australia and is expected to be available in New Zealand from April 2023 at your local vet clinic.

For more information on Flexolt, visit www.flexolt.co.nz.

ACVM No: A011971. Ph: 0800 800 543. www.msd-animal-health.co.nz

APVMA No.: 91565/132669. Ph: 1800 226 551. www.coopersanimalhealth.com.au
© 2024 Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

What are breeding values? And why do you need a breeding objective? Our guest this week, Dr Jamie Courter, Beef Genetics Extension Specialist, explains why they are so important for reaching our breeding goals. 

Do you have a breeding objective? This is the first question Jamie asks every producer. “I don't care what your breeding objective is if it makes sense for you,” says Jamie, “I just hope that you have one.” With no farm being the same as another, a breeding objective needs to be personalised to the goals of each individual business.

But why are they so important? “That's how we can be profitable. We have to identify an end goal and we have to keep making consistent selection decisions that get us towards that goal. You won't see the impact of this year's bull decisions until five years down the road. If we don't have that objective in mind, we're just shooting in the dark; we're not heading towards that steady upward trajectory of the traits that really matter,” explains Jamie.

So, once you know where you want to be, how do you get there? Breeding values, be it an ASBV, EBV or EPD are the best tool we have to reach that goal.

Jamie does a great job of explaining how breeding values work and why results can vary. “I always ask producers, do you have siblings? Do you act the same, do you look the same? Light bulbs come on kind of at that point,” she shares. “In the beef cattle industry, we put pens of full sibling bulls together. It's a great way to get genetic uniformity, but it's not identical, right? They're as similar as they can be, but they're never identical.”

Keeping in mind that there are always outliers is useful. “If we have a hundred full siblings, then we would expect the average performance of those hundred calves to be the parent average, right? Most of the calf crop will have a weight right around what we expect, but we're going to have outliers on either side,” says Jamie. “It's just a result of the shuffling of the DNA. A lot of times people expect it to be perfect and unfortunately with statistics, there's always outliers one way or the other.”

Jamie points out, “We can get a good picture of the true genetic merit of those animals and which pieces of DNA they inherited from their sire or their dam. It's 50% both times, but there are 30 pairs of chromosomes and there are however many million base pairs that could have been inherited. And so we're able to get at the true genetic difference that those animals have, with genetics.”

You can read more from Jamie here:
https://blog.steakgenomics.org/.

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

Tune in to our latest podcast episode as Emily Riggs, the founder and creative force behind Iris and Wool, shares her inspiring journey. 

Emily and her husband live on a sheep property outside of Burra, South Australia. “I fell in love with my farmer and also fell in love with wool,” explains Emily. “I don't actually work hands-on on the farm. So, I thought, how can I contribute to the industry?” Out of this, Iris and Wool was born, offering 100% certified Australian Merino wool knitwear, Merino denim, and accessories.

But why fashion and clothing? “I think I've always had a love for fashion. When I was a little girl, I was actually diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is a cancer of the lymph nodes. I knew that I was going to lose my hair,” Emily explains. “I was often mistaken for a boy. And that really shattered my confidence. It was then that I really turned to fashion. It was a way for me to express my creativity and for people to actually look beyond my illness.”

Iris and Wool started as an online fashion brand, with their family home as their ‘warehouse’. They have since expanded into a brick-and-mortar store in Burra, meaning their home has gone back to being a home and their customers can now try on the clothes before buying. 

For every sale at Iris and Wool, $1 goes to the Childhood Cancer Association and knitted beanies are donated to recently diagnosed children in South Australia.

Emily’s story is a heart-warming example of how, with “...a lot of hustling”, you can turn your dreams into a reality.

 #IrisAndWool #FashionWithHeart #MerinoWool #Podcast

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE

This week on the podcast, Darren Spencer, President of the Western Australian Shearing Industry Association (WASIA), discusses some of the key issues faced by the wool industry, as well as how wool producers and the shearing industry can work together more effectively in the future.

First up, Darren runs us through what WASIA has done to address the much talked about “shearers’ shortage”. 

In the wake of COVID, it was obvious to WASIA that there were not enough new entrants coming into the Australian shearing industry, “So, that meant we had to actually do some training,” he explains. “Through AWI, there was a lot more emphasis put on training new entrants and novices. For the first time ever, you could see guys go to a shearing school, learn how to shear, shearing 50 or 60 a day and they could jump on a stand because the stands were empty.” 

Darren says they now have enough shearers in WA and the emphasis has shifted to upskilling them. WASIA have noticed a shortage in shed staff, so that is their new focus.

The next question, if we have enough shearers, is how do we retain them in the industry?

WASIA and AWI have developed the “Safe Sheds - The Shearing Shed Safety Program”. The aim is to help improve safety and efficiency in the shearing shed. The program assists woolgrowers to identify what needs to be fixed and provides a process to follow. “We developed the program and also developed an app with it. The program is set up with four parts. You have an induction, a pre-shearing, a post-shearing and a main full inspection program,” explains Darren.

“That was set up so that we could go to a shed, preferably well before shearing, and run through the program with the farmer and leave him with a list or whatever that needed to be fixed and we could discuss with him the priorities about what needed to happen first,” says Darren. 

Follow the link below to find this great resource: 

https://www.wool.com/globalassets/wool/people/shearing-sheds-and-sheep-yard-design/shearing-shed-assessment-manual.pdf.

Shearing is an incredibly demanding task and Darren emphasises how important it is for farmers to keep thinking about how they can make the job easier for shearers. There are recent innovations in shearing shed design, such as race delivery systems, that can improve productivity, as well as reduce physical strain on shearers.

Thanks to our sponsors, Heiniger, for setting up this interview. Darren has great insight into the core issues within the shearing industry and we think this episode is a must-listen for all woolgrowers! 

Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited. 

We help livestock farmers 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: [email protected].

Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, Heiniger Australia and New Zealand, and ProWay Livestock Equipment. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.

Check out the MSD range HERE

Check out Allflex products HERE

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE

Check out ProWay's product range HERE