Head Shepherd

Join us today for a chat through Richard Rains's career of 40 years of selling meat around the world. "It became a great passion and I still pinch myself every day at the success a little kid from the bush was able to achieve." 

Richard grew up in central NSW and was the youngest of four kids. When it was his turn to return to the farm, his father said to him, "Things aren't great. If you come home, it just means we've just got to split the meagre returns another way." explains Richard. "He did say, give it a go, if it works we'll all be better off. If it doesn't, you can just come home". With that safety net behind him, Richard started into his career in the meat industry. 
 
In the early seventies, Richard was head-hunted to go to a meat trading firm, Sanger. With Sanger, Richard sold the first beef to Korea that was ever imported there via government tender. He spent a lot of time there. "Thirteen times in one year. Quite a thing for a young kid from the bush," he says. 

After a year in the London offices, Richard was sent back to Australia as the business was struggling. Richard then joined the newly formed Sanger Australia in 1976 and retired 10 years ago, leaving behind a $500 million legacy.

Mark and Richard talk through how they built that business so successfully,  from hiring and training staff in the right way and also having a fantastic relationship with
Richard and Mark then discuss the future of the industry from the view of a meat trader. 

"Food is an experience, and how lucky are we to have these experiences," says Richard. "There was absolutely no doubt in my time, the more tags you could put on an animal the greater value you could get for it. Whether it was Wagyu, Organic, Natural, Grain fed or Grass fed." And the same still stands today. 

Richard believes we should be doing more brand marketing. But, not at an individual producer level. His advice is... "Rather than producing what Grandad did and hoping for the best, I strongly recommend producers to get a relationship with their producer and find out which one is going to work for them. They should supply into that processors brand."

Mark and Richard round the podcast off by talking about the Zanda McDonald award. "It is changing lives, and at my stage in life there's not much that gives me greater pleasure than being able to change the lives of young people in Agriculture."

Find out more here:
https://www.zandamcdonaldaward.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

Are you optimising your farm's production? Today we have John Young, aka Youngy, on the podcast. There are so many ways to optimise your farming business and sometimes that can be overwhelming. John, however, makes it all sound very understandable and achievable.

John's background is in farming but he now runs a systems analysis service.  Farm Systems Analysis Service has been involved in the development of AFO (Australian Farm Optimisation model). John gives us a rundown of what AFO is.

"AFO is a bio-economic model aimed at how best to allocate your resources to achieve your objective. What that actually means, when you apply it to a farm is trying to improve your on-farm decisions. So how you allocate your time, feed, and paddocks to try and achieve your goals."

The strength of the models is that they have an economic focus and a management focus. The weakness of the model, or the "challenges" as John thinks of them, is the challenge of how to represent biology well. And this has been the focus of John's career.

"The other sort of weakness," John says,  "Is that it only represents one type of year. My son, Michael has just about finished his PhD and one of the things he has incorporated is seasonal variation- or 'Weather-Year' variation as he calls it- to differentiate the variation from summer to winter, from this year to last year to next year. That addressed one of the major weaknesses in the model."

You can find out more about Michael's research here https://youngsfarmanalysis.com.au/research/

Mark and John run through the outcomes of some of the analysis John has been involved with. From fibre diameter and improving weaning percentages to the value of saving a single lamb or the economic value of ASBVS based on an individual business's current status. 

Currently industry indexes mostly assume that a farm system is a multiplication of an individual animal's performance. It also mostly assumes each trait has an economic value on a linear scale. John explains how that isn't always the case.

"The value of increasing litter size is much higher if your current litter size is 1.2 vs someone whose current litter size is 1.8. One is adding a few more twins, the other is adding more triplets." He explains. "So we know that the relative economic values vary. If we can make allowances for that, we can work within the bounds of what's required to make a good index."

"Coming up with the relative economic values is not a simple task, it's a little bit like the value of an extra lamb. There's a simple answer that's quite often wrong and then there's the more complicated answer."

Mark describes John as "The smartest person I know" and after listening to this podcast, you'll probably agree. 

We'd love to know what you think of this podcast, and how it has you thinking about optimising your farm and how you approach industry indexes going forwards. 

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

Integrated pest management for blowfly, worms and lice is the topic of todays podcast, with our guest Alison Colvin. 

Alison has published work on practices on farm and has also been involved in a lot of survey work. You can find more here

Alison runs us through the surveys, which had some interesting results about incidences of flystrike, treatment trends and the effects of drought on lice, fly and worm problems and much more.

You can read the results for yourself here:
The Australian Sheep Parasite Survey

Mark and Alison then run through Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for lice, worms and flies.

Starting with a hot topic at the moment, lice. The results of the survey confirmed what they have known for a while, that the prevalence of lice on Australian flocks is around 20% but it is decreasing slightly.

"Introduction through purchased and stray sheep was the most ranked reason for recurring lice infestations. The second was not completing the whole flock at the same time and incomplete mustering. So there are still areas for improvement on our on farm lice control." says Alison

"Rotation of lice products is theoretically good, you should be able to get rid of all of the lice and not have any surviving lice building up resistance. BUT that relies on us using the products properly for lice prevention. Dose rates...all sheep treated, shearing equipment is changed between sheds etc."

So, if the lice treatment is effective, and you have good boundary fences and biosecurity regimes then you might not have to deal with lice for a good period of time. It's just making sure you're paying attention to detail with lice.

Mark makes a great point. "Flies and worms turn up anyway, whereas lice you can win the battle and remove them from your property. "

Mark and Alison also run through the key parts of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) that are important for worms and flies too. 

Alison highly recommends the website paraboss.com.au for information and tools for IPM. Although this is an Australian website, our listeners worldwide will definitely find something worthwhile on there.
 
There really is no avoiding these pests when sheep farming so this is a good podcast for anyone involved in your farming business. 

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

One of the main topics of today’s podcast is the financial modelling of transitioning to a shedding flock from a Romney our guest, Prof. Paul Kenyon of Massey University, has been involved with.
Mark asks what instigated the work and what does the modelling show?

"In reality, coarse wool is costing more to get it off. Many farmers spend their whole summer shearing, crutching, dagging, dipping... controlling fly. As we move forward in the modern society it's harder and harder to get labour in remote areas." Says Paul. "Many don't want to work on a sheep farm when in summer, they're doing those four jobs over and over again."

Paul and his team modelled what it would look like financially to transition from a Romney to a Wiltshire.

"As you went through the transition and post transition, you're better off to move to a Wiltshire because of reduced costs."

"It also showed us, to be [financially] status-quo with a shedding animal, the price of wool had to be up around $5... and it hasn't been around that in a long time."

Because the only data available for the modelling was from the 80's and 90's, they are now working on updating it so it is more accurate to today's Wiltshires in New Zealand.

"That's a slightly different genotype than what's in the industry now."

"We've started a field study. We have a farm where they've agreed to leave half of the flock as straight Romneys and the other half have been bred to the Wiltshires," explains Paul. "We have our Romney control and as the respective generations are born, the Wiltshire crosses are crossing back over the Wiltshire."

They are now at the point where they have hoggets that are 7/8ths Wiltshire meaning they are one generation away from what most breed societies would accept as a full Wiltshire.  They are also collecting a huge amount of data during the trial.

Paul says "We're collecting everything from mating performance, puberty onset in hoggets, scanning percentage, NLB, NLW, weaning weights, wool traits.." and much much more.

"We're collecting the wool traits because in the 1/2, 3/4 and 7/8's, you're going to have to shear them to get the 'mohawk' off them. So we're collecting that out of curiosity. "

Mark asks about the value of the wool on a Wiltshire.
"At a 35+ micron there's not really much more of a hit you can take."

Because shedding doesn't take place biologically until late spring after a winter, Paul explains they're looking into how early they can pick replacements based on a "shedding score" and also how that first shedding score relates to their score as a 2th or 4th. Some interesting research!

You can read the full article modelling the transition here:
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/11/2066

This is only a fraction of what is a fascinating podcast with Paul. Listen in to hear about more great research. 

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

As producers, you're always wanting to get the most for your hard earned produce and it always helps when your processor wants that for you, too.

Located mid-way between Sydney and Melbourne, Gundagai Meat Processors (GMP) is one of the most innovative lamb processors in Australia. GMP became a household name within the industry as they were the first to offer premiums for IMF.

This week we have Will Barton, CEO of GMP on the podcast. We start off strong diving straight into why GMP decided to offer a premium to suppliers.

"We had a period from 2000 to 2020 where we weren't trading. What that meant for us is, in 2020 when we stuck our head up and decided to launch Gundagai Lamb as a brand, we could start up as we wanted. We said "Hey, we're going to do something different do you want to come with us?"."

Will goes through how GMP decided what that "something different" actually was.
 
Gundagai started the process of change by paying less for over-fat lambs, and more for lambs that had a better meat yield. They have now developed a scoring system called GLQ score.
 
"We realised [...] that if we didn't have an eating quality measure to balance the lean meat yield trait... we were potentially going to be in a situation where we bred chicken." i.e lean, fast growing and tasteless. "We need a 'guardian' of eating quality."

Will runs through the work they did with machine learning and AI to come up with the GLQ score.

"It's more than just IMF. It's an algorithm that encourages above average marbling but it also discourages over fattening." 
 
"If we get a carcass thats got an insane amount of marbling but a low lean meat yield, it wont make GLQ5+. Because it's unsustainably fat and we want producers to be tuning into genetics to create that outcome rather than just over fattening an animal to get there." Says Will. "We also track 20 animal health conditions and/or carcass defects. We take a point off for any of those animal health attributes on a carcass by carcass basis." 

To sum all of that together means a GLQ5+ lamb has to be above average eating quality, which has not been done via excessive fattening and the animals either got clean bill of health or the farmers been given feedback to improve their practices over time- so a holistic attitude approach.  

And how much financial reward as a producer do you get for achieving that?
"We pay, at the moment, $0.80/kilo for a GLQ5+ lamb."

Mark asks if there's any focus on a particular breed, or if they'll work with producers advising on those requirements to be GLQ5+. Will says that's not the role of GMP

"We see that you can have any breed that you like and achieve the desired outcomes if you follow the right genetics and then match those genetics with the right nutritional platform. We're not about to become agronomists or geneticists."

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

Every day, we make hundreds of decisions. These decisions affect you, your business and those around you. This week we have Kate Burke on the podcast talking about how to make the right decisions.

With 26 years of experience behind her, Kate has a huge range of expertise in the Agriculture industry. Kates principles come from her experience in the industry as an agronomist, an educator, researcher, writer and also growing up as part of a multigenerational farming business.

"My mantra at Think Agri is about good, sophisticated thinking in agriculture and bringing together the best of both worlds; that intuitive multigenerational farm thinking and some of the discipline that comes out of corporate agriculture."

"My philosophy is about joining the dots and connecting the people, the technical and the business all together."

Today Kate walks us through eight points of 'wethering the storm', something we need to constantly keep in mind in such a changeable industry as agriculture.

1. Managing thought.
The simple concept of drafting your thoughts like sheep through the race.

2. Be aware of self and others
Self awareness is about being in tune where you are at, and reading the play around you.

3. Maintain resilience
This is resilience in terms of staying productive and staying well- something we've done poorly as a farming industry.


Listen to the podcast to hear more of Kates fantastic tips to connect science, people and money.

Here is Kates website:
https://www.thinkagri.com.au/

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 we have an old supervisor of Marks, Graham Gardener as our guest. Graham has been involved in a huge multi species project (ALMTECH) focusing on measuring lean meat yield and eating quality for the past 7 years. You can find out more about it here:
https://www.almtechau.com/

Mark and Graham start off with the work ALMTECH have been doing on live animal measurements in terms of lean meat yield.   

"In beef, the most advanced one we started with was a 3D imaging system. The cameras would acquire images and predict things like weight, eye muscle area and fat depth. We also had a muscle scoring system. Also we could predict the whole carcass composition in terms of bone muscle and fat ratio."

Another piece of new technology Graham covers is a handheld microwave device where you can predict the fat depth in cattle. The tech has been developed from a technology applied to humans to do brain scanning, so it's very safe for humans.

Mark and Graham then go onto DEXA (Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry).

"We've done preliminary work and it looks quite good and far more accurate than any of those other systems I've just described" But the scale and cost of the machine isn't always ideal. "About half of all lambs slaughtered in Australia are measured on the DEXA scale. But, not everyone wants a DEXA system so we've been working on the handheld devices." Says Graham.

Some of these devices are being developed to be used in both live and carcass measurements. "The same microwave device, we're having a crack at that in the abattoir as well. The accuracy is promising and it might be able to meet accreditation standards." Graham explains. 

When it comes to scoring sheep, it isn't as easy as beef what with the wool distorting imaging. "Simple surface imaging cameras don't work." says Graham. "The microwave does a pretty good job at predicting fat depth, and we've had a crack at correlating it with a medical DEXA scans of live animals."

"So, lean meat yield was one half of the story, eating quality was the other half." says Graham. "There are things that measure eating quality in lamb but we cant measure them at chain speed yet."

Mark asks about any other tools in the belt for selecting for eating quality.

"There are tools that we can use for those other traits like shear force, and thats genetics." Says Graham. "It's only the really switched on breeders that are bothering to optimise their eating quality traits within their selection indices."

Mark finally delves into the cellular level of meat quality which is an absolutely fascinating conversation for those sheep nerds out there.

Have a look at the Scott Automation processing video Mark and Graham mention here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aim65529e4E

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

Bio shearing, wool harvesting practices and Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) research is the topic of this week's podcast.

We have Jock Laurie, chair of AWI chatting with Mark today. Jock currently farms wool, lamb, beef and grain on properties in New South Wales. In 2021 Jock became chair of AWI.

Jock runs us through what AWI does, and what they're currently looking into it.

AWI, for those that don't know, is responsible for research and development for the Wool Industry in Australia. They're involved in many aspects from working on marketing the wool product and creating demand,  innovation in the shearing process, pasture varieties,  developing new uses for wool and working with wool growers to help maximise profitability and identifying areas of concern. Recently, Jock says their role has been heavily in "defending the fibre [wool] in the environmental sustainability debate."

Mark and Jock dive into the recent work AWI has been involved with.

"The first thing we have to do is get the product off the sheep's back." Jock says. There's the traditional changes we could make in the industry, and which we should be doing actively.  Changing shed design, knowing where the stressors are in shearing and changing the shed design to improve that. But AWI is also looking into something else.

"We're also looking with Adelaide University around a "bio-shearing" Jock explains

"It is essentially putting a break in the clip and then removing it." Something they have achieved already. The next step is working on a way to get the wool harvested.

"Ideally you run them through a machine that takes the wool off as you already have the break, you could use air to take the wool off." But that is all in the research stage currently.

Jock says that Covid highlighted the shearers shortage in Australia and thus the importance of finding alternative ways of harvesting wool.

"We know there are labour shortages across all industries, but industries that have physical demands that shearing does... we need to recognise that and focus on alternative ways of removing the wool. and without COVID we may not have seen that."

You can find out more here.

Mark and Jock cover a multitude of topics in this podcast, showing just how much AWI are involved with. It is a great, inspiring listen about the future of the industry. 

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

Today on the podcast we have a different kind of guest! We have the incredible Dr. Roswitha Baumung who currently works at the Division for Animal Production and Health of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Roswitha has always had a passion for animals. She studied Agriculture and completing her pHD on Animal breeding and genetics.  "I was especially interested in the genetics of small populations".  After a scientific career at University, she began a helping farmers in her home country, Austria, set up breeding programmes for rare breeds. 

Now she works for the FAO, working with all of the breeds around the world. Roswitha works in a team of three and is responsible for looking at the diversity of our livestock breeds.

In her role she supports countries by implementing breeding plans to preserve the genetic diversity of the population amongst many other things.

Mark and Roswitha discuss the importance of maintaining a native population to deal with shifting climate conditions. She says in some developing countries, she has seen a shift in species that specialise in harder conditions, aka going from sheep farming to camel farming!

"We need animals that are resilient, that recover fast after a [weather] event." And it's not just an environmental shift, it's also a consumer shift.

Mark asks is there is a secret gene bank full of the worlds animal genetics, like there is with seeds, but alas there is not. Roswitha does mention "cryoconservation" though, which you can read more about here

This podcast is a fantastic insight of the bigger picture thinking when it comes to the future of livestock breeding. 

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

It is always interesting to compare different farming systems across this world. This week on the podcast we have Dr Tim Keady speaking about farming in Ireland. Having recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, Tim has a great insight at how the different systems compare.

"We went to see the use of different technologies on-farm, with the intention of reducing labour and improving efficiency. So, we decided to go to New Zealand" says Tim. "... to look at the systems of sheep reproduction... but also to look at the types and levels of technologies that are used on farm, particularly to improve labour efficiency."

Dr Tim Keady is principal sheep research scientist in the Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Teagasc Athenry and has a wealth of knowlege on the Irish sheep industry. 

Mark and Tim compare the different genetics, grassland management, hogget breeding and markets which are surprisingly similar in many ways. 

Firstly, in the last number of years in pedigree breeding genotyping is becoming more and more important in Ireland. Tim says "It's looking like there's a new scheme thats been launched this year that one of the requirements is that you have to buy a genotyped ram." A concept that has yet to reach our shores. 

Tim runs Mark through the Irish sheep meat markets. Much like New Zealand, Ireland exports most of it's lamb, with 70% going overseas, making it the largest net sheep meat exporter in Europe. With 2.5 million ewes, that's no mean feat. 

 Mark and Tim discuss the breed profile of these sheep to fit both the Irish seasons but also the export market requirements.

Thank you Tim for sharing your time with us. 

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