Head Shepherd

If you can optimise your stocking rate for your season, there's no reason you can't make profit in livestock. However, accessing capital for trading and breeding stock, isn't always easy and can hold a producer back. 

That's where Richard Brimblecombe and Legacy Livestock come in. Richard is a "Queenslander through and through" who always had a hankering for numbers. After a career in banking, Richard became one of the founding CEOs of stockco's Australian business. In 2019 he joined the North Australia Pastural Company. 

Richard says, "It was a very interesting roll, but having to the taste for livestock finance and what it can do for the Australian Ag Industry, and for individual producers, I was very keen to do something different in that space again; so we kicked off Legacy Livestock."

"The role [of Legacy Livestock] is to come in and provide the piece of capital to allow a producer to run his property at his full stocking rate and therefore at its full potential.

The best way to get in touch is to visit the website: www.legacylivestock.com.au

Richard says "Give us a call, have a look around on the website. You can ring the number and you will talk directly to a relationship manager, and sometimes you might even get me!''

Richard and Mark also cover what it is to be a good producer, how optimum stocking rate can do wonders, and Richards insights into market trends.
 

https://www.legacylivestock.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

Want to know more about sheep parasites? This week we have Ginny Dodunski on the podcast chatting about everything from drenches and capsules, to resistance and refugia. This podcast is full of handy, helpful tips, which will hopefully make you take a step back and look at your worm management programme on farm.

In the last 12 months, Ginny has been the Wormwise programme manager but, prior to that, Ginny was (and still is) a practising large animal vet. 

Wormwise was launched as an initiative to help farmers manage drench resistance.  Ginny says that resistance to anthelmintics was always going to happen.  "Parasites were always going to develop a resistance to drugs. The more days in the year your worm population is exposed to drugs, the more opportunities they have to breed and get around it."

Mark and Ginny spend the podcast discussing what you can do if you do have drench resistance and how you can clean your farm up practically.

From different methods of refugia, cattle grazing and careful management of drench usage, Ginny says there are solutions to the problem. Mark points out that, "Well-monitored is the only way to be, you can't do any of this shooting blind." Ginny explains that, for the first few years, technical management can be overwhelming, but once you "get your eye in", she says it can be a lot less formal.

Mark and Ginny discuss the genetics behind it, and how it's not always about doing faecal egg counts and watching drenches. "It's about really focusing on feed and condition and minimising larval challenge."

If you'd like to keep up to date with Ginny and Wormwise, you can find them on Facebook here.

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 are discussing markets and were lucky to secure some time with Matt Dalgleish to talk through the current markets and current trends.  Matt has a wealth of experience in livestock markets.

Matt works with Andrew Whitelaw and together they have founded Episode 3 to provide market analytics.  You can find out more about their work at Episode 3 

They began working together in commodity market analysis in 2016 at an agriculture analysis firm owned and operated by Ruralco, a listed Australian company. In 2019, Ruralco was acquired by Agrium Australia (formerly known as Landmark), a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian agribusiness, Nutrien.  

In 2020 Andrew and Matt decided to leave Nutrien to form a new food and agriculture analysis business known as Thomas Elder Markets (TEM), with the support of Elders Rural Services, a listed Australian company. 

In 2022, Andrew and Matt took over the ownership of TEM, rebranding the business and relaunching as Episode 3 (EP3).

Matt and his business partner produce the Ag Watchers Podcast - here is the link to follow their work:  https://agwatchers.podbean.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

This week we bring you Ferg's thoughts on innovation and particularly the role Artificial Intelligence will play in livestock farming in the future.   The uptake of innovations in livestock breeding in the last 20 years is about to go into over drive and we are on the cusp of big changes in how sheep breeding happens across the industry.  There will be two options for those breeders out there - adapt or be disrupted.

Some of the concepts in this podcast are borrowed from Christian Kromme, we highly recommend you read or listen to his book and follow him on social as well as subscribing to his news letter. 
A link to his book is here - https://christiankromme.com/the-book-eng/

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

Mark Wragg transitioned from Romney ewes to a finer wool cross three years ago. Today he chats to Mark Ferguson about that process and also about the introduction of a White Suffolk stud to their business.

After attending a NZM workshop a few years ago Cheviot, which Mark Ferguson spoke at, Mark Wragg decided to make the jump into transitioning to finer wool genotype.

"A long time ago they tried merinos but the feet just fell apart.  We have heavy clay downs and it stays wet all winter. It's pretty hard on feet." But after hearing about the work done in footrot breeding values in Merinos, Mark decided to give it another go. "Certainly that workshop opened our eyes to the potential and what was possible."

Mark introduced the Southern Cross genotype into his Romney flock three years ago. The southern cross is a fine wool sheep that focuses very heavily on footrot breeding values, dag breeding values and WEC breeding values...

"...and all the things you need to entice a Romney farmer to take on a fine wool genotype. " says Ferg

Ferg and Mark run through the highs and lows of transitioning into a new genotype.

The main issue is uneven lines of lambs. But as Mark explains, "It's just transitioning and its's part of it and you've got to grin and bare it until you get through it."

But the highlights?

"We had the opportunity to shear about 4000 first cross lambs and even in that first cross they went from $2.50 for Romney lambs wool to getting almost $10 a kilo for that first cross wool"

"Certainly helped with paying the shearers." says Mark.

Along with the first cross hoggets averaging 26 micron, weaning weights being up 2kg on last year and there not being a sign of footrot on the place, you could say Mark is convinced. 

Mark also discusses the introduction of the White Suffolks into New Zealand from Australia.  "The thing I really like about the White Suffolk is that it has a really nice shape for lambing ease nice, low birth weights but very rapid growth, which is what kiwis needs as seasons are short and variable."

Ferg also has a love for the breed. "It would be hard to argue there is a more performance driven terminal breed in the world than the White Suffolk."

This podcast is a great insight into what it looks like to transition from a Romney to a finer wool genotype without sacrificing any of the production traits that traditionally came with a finer wool type. 

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 Head Shepherd podcast we have another senior scientist of AgResearch, Tricia Johnson.

Following on from our podcast with Dr Suzanne Rowe on "Genetic selection for lower methane in ruminants", we invited Tricia on to focus on her research in one of Marks favourite topics, feed efficiency and body composition.

Tricia has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to sheep phenotypes and genetics; from muscling and meat quality traits to Facial Eczema .

Mark starts off this epic podcast with the Myomax gene.

"Early 2000's when Texel's were gaining prominence in New Zealand [...] We identified a region of the myostatin gene which was associated with increased muscling in the Texels."

Tricia dives into more about muscling and fat, which then leads to the topic of feed use efficiency.

"We've known for a long time that feed use efficiency is a really important economic trait in terms of feed cost, but also in terms of animals being able to be a little more resilient in the face of variable feed amounts" She explains.

Tricia walks us through the trial that began back in 2015. "We have 6 weeks where we have daily feed intake recording.  Any time an animal goes into a feeder we see the timestamp of when she goes in, how long she's there for and how much feed she eats for that feeding event." This gives a fantastic profile of feeding events over the trial period.

"We also take live weights twice a week ... we have a really nice profile of her growth and her feed intake at the time and a whole lot of behavioural traits of how she's eating that feed"

Mark asks about those behavioural traits and if they discovered anything interesing.

Tricia tells us about a fascinating finding when they ran the BLNZG Low Input Sheep Progeny Test animals through the intake facility. 

"One of the really interesting things, in terms of looking it some of these behaviour traits, happened in the first cohort of these [low input] girls."

After their Farm manager at the time noticed a "bunch" of them were refusing to transition into the facility, something highly unusual after over 2,000 sheep had previously done so sucessfully. 

So, Tricia wondered if they were all from the same low input sire? And they were. He was also a leading ram in a certain trait, can you guess which one? 

Tricias knowledge in feeding efficiency and behaviour, the genetics behind them and the resulting factors of those behavioural patterns is just incredible. You'll want to listen to this podcast a few times! 

Thank you Tricia for sharing your time with us and our listeners. 

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 have the wonderful Prue Bondfield. Prue didn't have a traditional pathway into agriculture. 'In terms of the beef industry, my association there started when I got married to my husband, who owned a Charolais stud. I was a lawyer in Brisbane, Queensland,' says Prue. 'It was really city meets country in the best way.'

From the time David and Prue purchased 50 cows from her father-in-law, the stud went from strength to strength. 'We ran the Palgrove seedstock herd for 35 years and, in summary, exited that business early this year.'

Mark asks, now that Prue and David have built and exited a successful business, with the power of hindsight, would they do anything differently now?

'You learn by trying. If it hadn't been invented, we'd try and develop or pioneer something. We found that over our life we had to find different ways of breeding our cattle or different breed standards for us ... they're not things you'd do differently, but they certainly make character.'

'When you do things half right, you never feel great about it,' says Prue. 'It feels better if you're doing things really, really well, to the best you can do it and producing quality at the other end.'

Prue credits the key factors of their business's success to a few things. First was leasing land whilst they increased their numbers. 'We had a factory operating before we bought the factory floor ... so we had productive animals ready to move onto any new land that we bought.'

'Once embryo transplants started to become part of the norm in the business, that really jumped our numbers up. There was this never-ending game of chase behind the production. And then that gets to a certain point where you become a big supplier.'

Prue says they never intended to be a large business; they wanted quality over quantity, but they were obviously onto a winning formula!

'We started to think about how we raise some capital, to raise some to find a partner who will very much be part of this growth story.' One essential for success was that Prue made sure the business was ready for investment. Prue says, 'You have to be operating as a corporate entity in a family business, which is what we really gave a lot of time into getting that right prior to looking for capital.'

Prue now sits on a range of boards and governance structures and still has connections throughout the industry. 'One of them is an AgriTech company called Black Box Co. It's fantastic, it gives me a really good insight on what farmers are asking for in terms of practical, good technology.'

Prue is an inspiration to many, and we thank her for spending her time with us and sharing her story and insights into 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

This week we have a fantastic podcast for you discussing a very hot topic, Methane emissions in ruminants.

We have Dr Suzanne Rowe, Senior Scientist at AgResearch talking about the history of recording methane in sheep, what the industry is currently doing towards reducing methane emissions and where the future of methane in sheep is heading.

Dr Rowe was born and raised in the UK, studied Agriculture and has a PhD in Quantitative Genetics. She then moved to NZ "..where we've got the great facilities and big herds." Suzanne has been working, for almost the past decade, on breeding sheep with low methane outputs.

"The program was started in 2007 by a man called John McEwan, I'm sure many of your listeners would have heard of John. He set out to understand whether methane could be measured and whether it was heritable."

John started with 1,000 animals from CPT flocks, so his findings would be applicable in the industry immediately.  "It took him around 4 years to get them all through the  Portable Accumulation Chamber (PAC)." The PAC is a chamber which uses a gas analyser measuring device to record gas outputs from sheep.

Back then it took two days to measure one animal. Every 6 minutes a sample would be taken from a PAC, so it did give a very detailed result.

"From there what John did was select high and low methane selection lines and go on to breed these sheep for generations, to see if methane was passed on."

And was it?

"We're here today because it was. It's heritable."

"We went back and looked at those 6 minutes measures over the 48 hour time periods and we looked at each [...] measure and we worked out which of the ones were most predictive." This research and investigation work, evolved since the initial detailed studies, means now just a half an hour 'stint' is needed inside a chamber.

There are currently PACs in Ireland, units in Norway, one off to Scotland, France and Australia so the world is really starting to ramp up methane measurements in livestock.

AgResearch are currently trying to find out the connection between the gut microbes and methane emissions. "The microbiome that sits in the gut, is a property of its' host." Says Dr Rowe. "I don't think thats some maternal transfer, I think that's from the genetics of the animal"

"There are different ways to ferment feed, it seems that the low methane sheep have picked a different way to ferment the feed"

Suzanne briefly talks about the future of measuring methane in sheep. Recently they have been looking into taking and processing rumen samples and comparing them with PAC results. This could allow for more rumen samples to be taken in difficult locations where a trailer can't reach, or even with larger species such as cattle and deer.

However, it's not currently as easy as it may seem. The feed intake has to be very specific and precise prior to taking rumen samples because, as Suzanne explains, "We just don't have the validation or resources to know it's like for like". (For every grazing scenario)

Suzanne tells us about the Beef and Lamb NZ support package around the PAC chambers. They are supporting breeders for the next three years, helping them put their sheep through the trailers. A great incentive if you want to see how your sheep compare both within flock and with other farmers.

This is a spectacular podcast and we thank Suzanne for sharing her time with us.

You can read more about AgResearch's work on breeding low methane livestock here.

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 another episode in our "Ferg's Thoughts" series. Seeing as it's the start of a new year, Mark chats about what we can achieve in the future. 

"How can we set ourselves up for success in 2023?" Mark asks  "We always think back to that 30 years, depending on where you are in your farming cycle. That '30' being the number of times you get to select a bull or ram tea to go out."

"So roughly we get those 30 opportunities to keep the females we keep and the males we either buy or keep as well. " says Mark.

"The point of that is that, that is not many, so we have to make the best decision we can." He says, highlighting the importance of every breeding purchase and decision. 

Mark asks "What is the story you're telling yourself? What was the story you told yourself in 2022? We have this story in our head about what is possible, but it's hard to not get caught up in the hardships of farming. Be it the weather, legislation or any other problems farmers can face. "

"The reality is, we don't have a lot of control over that.  Our opportunities lie within dealing with the cards we're dealt. Our only control is how we react to that. How we get on and farm, how we breed animals.."

"I think 2023 is a great opportunity to try something new. Whether that's something as simple as scanning for twins..." Mark reminds us it's okay to try and fail, rather than not try at all.

If you'd like neXtgen to be part of your New Year to help you reach those new audacious goals, contact us at [email protected].

Thank you to all of our listeners in 2022 and the guests that shared their knowledge with us here at neXtgen and you our listeners. We have a fantastic line up for the start of 2023 that we think you'll love.

Check out The Hub
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Our community where our members have the opportunity to keep up to date with everything we are working on.

Thanks to our Sponsors
Allflex Livestock Intelligence is the leader in the design, development, manufacturing, and delivery of animal monitoring, identification, and traceability solutions. Their data-driven solutions are used by farmers to manage animals. By putting intelligent, actionable information into farmers’ hands, their solutions empower them to act in a timely manner for optimal outcomes.
A big thank you to our sponsors, Allflex Livestock Intelligence and MSD Animal Health Intelligence
www.allflex.global/nz/

Check out The Hub

thehub.nextgenagri.com

Our community where our members have the opportunity to keep up to date with everything we are working on.

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 Head Shepherd podcast we have our freshest recruit, James Lines.

After only 9 days on the job, Mark got James onto the head shepherd podcast to talk about his upbringing and what lead to him applying for a job at a genetics consultancy firm.

James grew up on a mixed farming enterprise, which also had the Gum Hills Merinos stud and south Devon cattle. After a 'gap year' working on the home farm and jackarooing, James studied Ag Science at Adelaide University. He's spent his last year really focusing on genomics during his honours project where he specialised in livestock production. 

James runs Mark through his project. "It was implementing a genomics program in a stud context, which was at home at Gum Hill." James explains. "It was interesting working with family and working with academics and researchers." 

James started off by sorting through a decade of data based mainly on wool quality. "Most of the sheep in the population had had yearling measurements for around the 10 months of age." With spreadsheets from 2012 available to him, James set about pulling together a huge database of historical records which he describes as "in a different format every time". Then he moved on to genomics. 

"I spent a couple of weeks with a lot of helpers and a lot of technology collecting DNA samples on all of the ewes that have scanned in lamb. Which will give us parentage for the first time."... "Combined that all, got through the statistics of it... meshed it all together and it spat out our enhanced genomic breeding values." 

"It certainly sets you up for your new role!" says Mark. "You couldn't ask for a better background" 

Mark and James also cover the T90 project. James is one of the T90 trainers helping people navigate materials and the changes they are implementing. 

James is currently based near Mount Gambier but will be covering Western Victoria, South Australia and also into WA once he's more centrally placed.

As Mark describes, James is tailor made for the job. If you would like to get in touch with James or anyone at the team you can contact us at:
[email protected]
[email protected]

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