This week on the podcast, we’re chatting all things livestock breeding with Robert Peacock from Orari Gorge Station. Robert discusses how and why they’ve been breeding for worm resistance. They have also been one of the first to measure feed efficiency and methane emissions, demonstrating the role of genetics in addressing these farming challenges. Tune in to discover how Orari Gorge is setting the standard for sustainable farming.

• Farming sheep, beef and deer in South Canterbury.
• How to begin testing for WormFEC.
• The importance of feed efficiency in livestock.
• What goes on in a central progeny test?

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

Our guest this week is veterinarian Enoch Bergman. Originally from the USA, Enoch arrived in Australia in 2003. He fell in love with the people, the landscape and the agricultural innovation of Esperance, Western Australia and has been there ever since.

Enoch is passionate about improving the performance of heifers and the use of fixed-time artificial insemination (AI) in commercial breeding programmes, and shares that passion with us today. He explains the process of synchronising heifers and the positive outcomes for conception rates, calving ease, calf and heifer survival, weaning rates and rebreeding rates. He also discusses the economic analysis of integrating fixed-time AI versus natural mating, including the cost of bulls, labour and the value of pregnant heifers.

Enoch is also involved with a Producer Demonstration Sites (PDS) programme that aims to encourage the uptake of fixed-time AI. The PDS showed that using fixed-time AI reduced dystocia, calf mortality and heifer mortality. It also improved weaning weights and re-breeding success. Enoch also discusses the benefits of early and short heifer joining and the potential challenges with bull longevity.

This podcast was recorded as a video with an accompanying presentation that includes some great graphs and statistics. You can watch it at this link:

https://youtu.be/tTgjaMRu9Dg

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

This week on the podcast we’re celebrating 200 episodes! We thought we’d make a special occasion of it so we recorded our podcast live at Lambex 2024 and who better to have on as a guest than Lambex founder, Dawson Bradford.

Mark and Dawson discuss the origins of Lambex. Dawson came up with the idea to “ … bring producers together with the processors and retailers, and get an understanding through the whole industry.” It’s safe to say Dawson accomplished that with 1,500 delegates attending in 2024.

Mark and Dawson also discuss the Ultrawhite breed's development and the ins and outs of starting a new sheep breed. From facing judgment from others to not knowing quite where the breeding would go in the first few years, it was quite the journey. “It’s taught me a lot. It taught me that I didn’t know very much before. It’s the challenge of bringing together the four breeds and stabilising the type. You think you've got it under control and a wildcard comes in from one of the four breeds,” shares Dawson. “Be aware of what you’re producing. Be aware of the faults that come up and move along quickly.”

This is a great chat between Dawson and Ferg about genetics and sheep breeding, and we couldn’t have picked a better guest to celebrate 200 episodes of Head Shepherd.

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

If you farm Merinos in Australia, it’s more than likely you will have heard of Merinotech. And if you’ve heard of Merinotech, it's likely that you know our fantastic guest this week, Bill Webb.

For those that don’t know, Merinotech is an intensively recorded ram breeding nucleus founded in 1988 by a group of WA Merino breeders who wanted to breed a ram that thrived in their environment, backed up by a breeding plan and strategy that fully embraced the latest developments in breeding and genetics. The stud nucleus was established at Kojonup, Western Australia, with ewes from founding members and they have been applying those founding principles ever since. Merinotech rams are now some of the highest ranking in Australia for traits such as fat, eye muscle depth, worm resistance and weaning rate, as well as high-value wool traits.

Whilst Bill is still the chairman of Merinotech, he is no longer actively farming. Once his son Ben returned, Bill decided to hand over the reins straight away, “…so he didn't have my negativity or things like that impinging on his ability to work out what to do,” explains Bill.

“I felt I'd done as much as I could to improve profitability and productivity. I didn't know what needed to be done over the next 30 or 40 years and Ben needed to work that out for himself, which he has done very well. We had a good relationship and the idea was to move out and still be involved, but not being present and influencing his decision-making in one way or another. And I'd had several back operations, so trying to do something that didn't involve physical work and continuing to injure or hurt myself was another reason.”

And with a response to succession such as that, it’s no surprise that Bill re-trained as a psychologist for the second half of his working life. “Initially I was trying to do something I didn't have to study for to earn an income,” says Bill. “I was looking around, trying to work out what to do. I was going to facilitate family meetings for succession planning and conflict resolution, mediation sort of things. And it soon became obvious that people can handle one problem, one or two problems, but when problems become multiple issues that's when difficulty occurs. So psychology became a foundation to work from, to be able to help people work through life events essentially. So it became obvious that I did have to do some study. It took me seven years of full-time study to become registered and this is my 11th year of registration as a psychologist and I'm loving the work.”

Bill discusses some of the lessons he’s learned over the years in both careers and what he would do differently if he could do it all over again. “Family is terribly important,” emphasises Bill. “Often farmers see the farm as the central focus and the goose that laid the golden egg, which means that the work-life balance and family can be compromised. I think at the end of the day, our family is what we have and we have to treasure and cultivate the importance of the family unit.”

Merinotech is holding their next open day on 4 October 2024 at Kojonup.

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

As you may have heard in the media recently, triple drench resistance in cattle is quickly becoming an issue for New Zealand farmers.

This week on the podcast, we are joined by Dave Leathwick and Christian Sauerman from AgResearch. They share how they came across the issue, why it has occurred and what producers can do to mitigate the risks of developing triple drench resistance.

Dave and Christian are both ‘accidental parasitologists’, with Dave initially studying entomology, while Christian was focused on biology and zoology. However, both have now been working with parasites for a combined 51 years!

Dave explains that drench resistance has been a long-standing issue: “The national survey that was done on cattle in 2004/2005 - virtually every farm in New Zealand had drench resistance to at least one active - and it just made no difference. Nobody paid any attention.” Now, 20 years later, the issue is far worse.

The research pair point out that they weren’t looking for evidence of triple drench resistance and it only came to their attention when a few farmers had issues with calves not performing well. FEC tests showed alarmingly high worm numbers, considering the animals had been drenched just three weeks prior, and tipped them off to the extent of the problem.

Christian highlights the signs and symptoms that cattle will show and also what producers can do to negate the risks of triple drench resistance. But you’ll have to tune in for that!

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

Our guest on the podcast this week is Barbara Webster, co-founder of inMR. Barbara shares with Mark how inMR's Marbl™ technology uses nuclear magnetic resonance to measure intramuscular fat quickly, accurately and non-invasively, delivering a new standard to the industry.

In the last few years, the technology has been successfully implemented in lamb-carcass grading. inMR are in the process of adapting it to other applications, such as beef carcasses and live animals.

While MRI technology has been around for a while, Barbara shares the challenges of adapting this technology for industrial use in a meatworks environment. One such challenge is speed. Their current model measures around four to five carcasses a minute. One of their development projects is a twin-sensor system that will measure 10 to 12 carcasses a minute.

Fortunately, another common challenge frequently faced by the industry - labour shortages - has been less of an issue for inMR. They chose to pursue an automated process, with data feeding directly into the system, rather than relying on someone standing there to do the measuring. “The weight of our sensor took us down that path, but I think it's a key point of difference and adds a lot of value,” shares Barbara.

Barbara points out that funding from organisations such as MLA and SFF Futures, along with investment by Ovation New Zealand, have been instrumental in advancing these innovations. “We've been very lucky and we've had tremendous support from funding agencies that invest in new technology development,” explains Barbara.

With the continuous innovation in robotics, sensors and AI, the next decade is going to be very interesting when it comes to tech in agriculture. Current technologies such as x-ray scanning and robotic cutting - along with emerging applications for MRI - are already in use. Mark and Barbara both share the belief that AI opens up doorways for automation and innovation like never before. "I think we're going to see a huge leap forward because our ability to cope with naturally varying product for automation applications is going to only become easier now with those tools,” highlights Barbara.

Whether you are a meat industry professional, a technology enthusiast or simply curious about the future of food production, make sure to tune in to this episode to learn more about the cutting-edge technologies that are set to transform the meat 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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

This week on the podcast we’re discussing heat stress during mating and pregnancy with Dr William van Wettere.

Heat stress is classed as anything over 32°C, which can disrupt fertility in ewes, semen quality in rams and embryonic development in lambs, so it has an overarching effect on all aspects of reproduction.

Mark and Will start by discussing the effects of heat stress on ewes. Trials show that heat stress affects ewes most in the five days leading up to ovulation and the first five days after ovulation; while heat stress after day eight of ovulation did not affect fertility. Heat stress also reduces the duration of oestrus, with the impact depending on the timing of the heat stress. Trials show that heat stress can shorten the length of oestrus by five to eight hours. Heat stress can also impact the cycle length, lengthening it by nearly two days in some cases.

One trial showed that for every additional day above 32°C, lambing percentages decreased by around 3.5%. A lot of this is comes down to disruption of the ewe’s follicle development. Because of this, and poor placental development, lamb birth weight and survivability can be affected. Heat stress at different times throughout the pregnancy can also have an effect.

Mark and Will also discuss the impact on ram fertility, which can be affected at any time in the 60 days leading up to mating. Heat can cause not only a reduction in the amount of sperm but also cause issues with motility and along with structural abnormalities.

Fortunately there are solutions to mitigate heat stress. Research has shown that sheep that have to look for feed are more likely to succumb to heat stress, so confinement feeding with adequate shade could be an option. Another solution is to increase the ram per ewe ratio. There is also research looking into the role of melatonin in mitigating heat stress effects.

This is a great factual podcast that will arm you with knowledge about what goes on with your sheep when you’re mating during the peak of summer so that you can make a positive change for future matings.

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE

Building resilience and achieving success in agriculture is an unpredictable challenge that involves continuous learning, upskilling, mentorship and adoption of innovative practices. In this episode, Mark chats with Danielle England, both a consultant and farmer, about resilience in the agricultural industry.

Danielle currently farms merino sheep with her husband and his family in Keilira, South Australia. However, she has spent most of her career going back and forth across Australia in a variety of roles, most of them focused on risk, resilience and people in agriculture.

Her first role was with the Department of Agriculture working in the Sustainability and NRM team before she moved across to Planfarm. There she got involved in the grain and mixed farming businesses and is now lead consultant with AgInnovate. “Nationally, I’ve led a lot of the decision-making around risk - and how farmers look at risk - and also the role of sheep in broadacre farms and cropping programmes, and what risks do sheep bring to those businesses,” explains Danielle.

With the recent announcements on live export, the sheep industry across Australia has suffered the flow-on effect of that uncertainty and a drop in confidence. Through her career in risk management, Danielle has some great insights about how farmers can navigate such an unsettled time.

Danielle disagrees that this will all ‘blow over’ in a year. “I think this a two- or three-year journey that the industry has to go on. As you know, we can't change sheep genetics very quickly,” she explains. “Sure we can move out of merinos and move into first-crosses or prime lambs, but they’re not going to hit the ground till 2025. 2024 mating was decided in 2023, we don't operate in really short turnarounds in livestock.”

Danielle suggests that whilst changes need to be made to ride out the wave, it’s best not to rush in and make too many changes at once. Sometimes it is not making ‘a’ change that is hard, but the decision about which change to make.
Here are some key points from Mark's chat with Danielle to consider when implementing change in your farming business:

• Know your core values.
• Know what you’re good at.
• Know what you enjoy.
• Keep an open mind.
• Don’t look back, instead focus on what you want to generate.
• Don’t add or subtract more than 30% in a business at once.

Finally, Mark asks Danielle what are the key characteristics of resilient businesses. “Someone once told me, if your farm’s still there, you’ve got a resilient business,” she says. “Farming is a long game and it’s an infinite game. We try and set it up for future generations. So whilst it looks stressful now, in the long run it will be okay.”

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 - info@nextgenagri.com

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

Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE