Texel lambs at The Gree

By Rob Tipa

The Gree farm manager Hayden Peter shares Kerry Dunlop’s passion for sheep breeding and enjoys pushing the boundaries in a constant search for new opportunities.

The property is surrounded by dairy farms, so every sheep has to perform to maximise production and every ewe has to rear a lamb to stay there.

Hayden is secretary of the Southern Texel Breeders and runs his own stud flock of 70 Texel ewes at the Gree.
He used A1 to source the best quality Texel ingredients from around the country for the past three seasons and is confident of the breed’s superior meat yield and his stud flock’s future to supply rams for both dual purpose and terminal use.

He has also had some impressive results with a breeding experiment mating Wiltshire/Greeline ram lambs with ewe hoggets at the Gree in the past three seasons.

“We’re trying to find a lamb that’s easy for hoggets to lamb and still produces a fast-growing, high-yielding carcase so we’re trying to compromise a bit,” Hayden said.

“Obviously we would like more twins than singles to lame. Everyone has problems lambing hoggets, especially those carrying singles.”

Since they started using Wiltshire/Greeline ram lambs, assistance rates for hogget lambing have dropped from 15 per cent to 10 per cent.

Originally, Kerry and Hayden were looking at the Wiltshire breed for its ability to shed its fleece, thus avoiding the costs of shearing.

When wool prices reached a low point a few years ago, wool’s net return to the farm was only about 5 per cent of sheep production, the other 95 per cent generated by meat production.

With the recovery in wool prices since then, net wool returns are still only 12 per cent of production and meat returns contribute 88 per cent of revenue.

Kerry and Hayden were evaluating Cheviot, Greeline and Wiltshire rams over their hoggets a few years ago and almost by chance found that the Wiltshire rams made for easier hogget lambing.

So for the last three seasons Hayden had mated 50/50 Wiltshire/Greeline ram lambs to Greeline ewe hoggets.
All in-lamb hoggets remain in one mob until a month out from lambing and then are separated into singles and multiples, with those carrying twins set stocked at 14 ewe hoggets/has on well sheltered paddocks and fed ad lib on good quality young grass.

This season the 481 hoggets mated were not that heavy at 43-44kg but still scanned 139 per cent, lambed 116 per cent and had an 84 per cent survival rate. The highest scanning of hogget to date was 152 per cent in 2009.

“This year survival rates have been excellent, mainly due to good weather and also good breeding,” Hayden said.
Ewe hoggets which produced twins are rearing 180 per cent, a figure that impressed Hayden so much he had to count the tails twice to make sure his tally was correct.

“Six years ago when I started at the Gree we were only scanning 110 to 120 per cent and tailing 90 per cent so we’ve come a long way in six years,” Hayden said.

“No we have a number of clients who are using that composite mix over their hoggets and they’re getting good results as well.”