MATERNAL COMPOSITES
Self replacing maternal sheep: growth, muscle & lambing %
Annual On Property Ram Sale:
Thursday 26th October 2023
Breeding Objectives
Our Maternal Composite flock started in 2014 with the aim of breeding a self-replacing maternal sheep that pumps out a high percentage of fast growing, meaty lambs. These are benchmarked on the maternal Lambplan database. Their focus is:
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Muscle (PEMD)
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Growth (WWT & PWT)
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Fat (PFAT)
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Good Mothers (ERA)
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High Quality Consistent Skins
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Large Weaning Percentages (YWR & WR)
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Worm Resistance (WEC)
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Maintained or Lowered Ewe Size (AWT)
Balancing Production with Adult Weight
Unfortunately some of they key genetic profit drivers in a prime lamb business are negatively correlated. A major one is adult weight. When you push to improve genetic growth and muscle, you are also likely to push adult weight up. This means harder handling and less ewes per hectare. One of our main aims is to make these production gains while at the same time not increasing adult ewe size, although low ewe size in not helpful if it is unproductive. It is difficult to have both, but possible.
Animal Health
To ensure that our flock remains at as low of a disease risk as possible we have kept a closed flock since 1999 with new genetics only being obtained through (frozen semen) artificial insemination.
All rams are:
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Brucellosis Accredited (856)
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Accredited Vaccinated for OJD (Since 2002)
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Vaccinated for Scabby Mouth
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Vaccinated with with 6 in 1
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Drenched before the sale
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Cobalt and Selenium Bulleted
Sheep Bred For The Real World
Our sheep are run in as close to commercial conditions as possible, and selected accordingly (i.e. rams not kept/hand fed in sheds, and ewes lamb in the paddock). To breed sheep that not only survive but thrive in commercial conditions, they need to be bred and recorded in commercial conditions!
Recording At Birth
We mother up, weigh, tag, maternal score, and record any lambing trouble or lamb losses in the paddock. Not many studs in Australia go to this level of effort, but this data is invaluable for us to breed sheep that have more lambs, with minimal assistance at birth. Essentially giving us much more accurate and valuable reproductive breeding values.
Quality Rams Guaranteed
We are very strong on client satisfaction and guarantee our rams. We believe that our rams are of the highest quality and speak for themselves.