How Genetic Strategies Can Solve Farming Problems with Robert Peacock

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, 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

Transcript

Managing Livestock Breeding and Operations

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome, robert Peacock to Head Shepherd Morning Ferg. Thank you for having me. Excellent. Thanks for your time, mate. We might just start, as we do, with a bit of background. I think maybe we'll do it in three chunks, as in the property, the studs and your own sort of journey, how you end up back. I assume you did some other things at some point, but I guess just yeah, how long, the harare gorge, the station itself and then the four studs there and then your own journey yeah, yeah, so the the property is harare gorge station, uh, just near geraldine, which is south canterbury, about two hours south of christchurch.

Speaker 2 0:38

We're just tucked in the foothills so got about 10 flat, 15 rolling and lower hill and that's sort of 70 to 75 percent sort of proper hill, just standard south island hill country. Goes up to just over a thousand meters, about three and a half thousand feet, uh running, uh about 9 000 ewes, just under 700 cows and nearly 2000 hines.

Speaker 1 1:05

So about a sort of uh just under 50 percent sheet 25 cattle, 25 deer roughly all right, and have the studs always well always been there in your time, or are they? They're your addition?

Speaker 2 1:20

uh, yeah, mostly here before me. So the Hereford Stud Arari Gorge, herefords started by my grandfather, originally as Nithdale Herefords. He started that stud back in 1940s and he had another property called Nithdale Station just down near Gore, which my cousin, andrew Tripp, now farms Family succession of late 80s. Early 90s. The stud moved up to Harare Gorge and about 2010, we rebranded it as Harare Gorge Herefords.

Speaker 2 1:55

The sheep studs started off with the Romney stud which the previous manager, ian Dent, started in the early 80s.

Speaker 2 2:04

So he wasn't happy with the old traditional Romneys he had here and he had a conversation with my grandfather about what else he might do with the commercial sheep and he would think he was thinking sort of Coopworths for the front country. And I think at the end of the conversation my grandfather stood up and as he left the room said, well, I don't care what you do, as long as they're Romneys. So he thought, well, I'm going to have to do something here. So he set up the stud by buying North Island Rams and in the process of the stud he also set up a group breeding scheme Canterbury Romney Development Group which got up to about 16 breeders at one stage in the early 90s group, which got up to about 16 breeders at one stage in the early 90s in the I came home, so about 2000, about 2008, I added the romney texel maternal stud stabilized cross and then in 2018 added the terminal stud, which is a sort of softex type cross.

Speaker 1 3:03

Yeah, righto. So journey between you coming home to the farm and, I guess, leaving school. What did that look like?

Speaker 2 3:12

So mother's family farm. My grandfather had a Rarri Gorge and Nithdale down near Gore. But on ROE she met my dad who was a Yorkshireman. So I actually grew up in Yorkshire, went to school and university in England, did a BXI with honours at Newcastle University. At school I loved farming but I wasn't really sure if it was going to be a career.

Speaker 2 3:40

The year between school and university I spent out here at a rarie gorge and, yeah, just loved it, chose sheep around the hills all week and played rugby and cricket each weekend and had a great time. And that was me. I was hooked. So the moment I went back to go to university I was always going to come straight back as soon as I'd finished, which I did. I did a bit of travel. Then did a postgrad at Lincoln, partly just to put a bit of a New Zealand spin on what I'd learned at Newcastle. It was quite a scientific degree at Newcastle. The Lincoln degree was a bit more applied, which was good, and also made a few contacts and got to make some Kiwi friends and stuff. Did a couple of years working in the Hawke's Bay on a farm there and then a bit more travel and then settled back here late 99, just after the World Cup.

Speaker 1 4:34

Saw that and then had to come home, yeah right, excellent, you're fitting into Kiwi culture well, measuring everything. By which World Cup it was closest to? Yeah, yeah, obviously. Now, yeah, with the four stars. Now it'll be interesting to get your reflections on maybe the challenges and and rewards of each of those, or which ones you find sort of easy and harder, I guess, in those different breeding herefords and then three different sheep breeds yeah, I'm often asked sort of which I prefer or which is most difficult.

Speaker 2 5:05

But, um, it probably tends to go through the season, like in general, we're busy with one, so that seems to be the focus for that month and then the next month we're doing something with the other. So I know fairly equal sort of passion for both and with both we're our own biggest client. So that that's the important thing for us trying to get it right for our own commercial stock, especially with the sheep. Yeah, we use about 100 ram hobbits a year on our commercial use. Yeah, across the three studs, and then those rams plus others are available for sale as tutus. So we get get first crack at the top genetics. But it also means we're not keeping the best and the best are still available for sale. There's a lot of stuff we're doing that. If I was just in the business of selling rams I might struggle to justify the time and cost recording, unless you're sure you're going to be selling more rams as a result. But the fact we get to use those genetics we're benefiting helps the equation a bit.

Speaker 1 6:10

Yeah, 100%. We might delve into cattle for a bit and then we'll head back towards the sheep, considering we've got a three-to-one ratio on studs. But I just had a look there before and I saw that you put your efforts through the feed efficiency units, the vital units. What was anything surprising there or any learnings from that? Just had a look there before and I saw that you put your efforts through the feed efficiency units, the Vitali units. Was there anything?

Speaker 2 6:29

surprising there or any learnings from that. No, I haven't really got the data back yet but I mean that sort of it was sort of everything sort of fell into place really. I was lucky enough to be on the beef and lamb trip MPI trip to America last year. There was a group of 16 of us went to the beef and lamb trip mpi trip to america last year. There's a group of 16 of us went to the beef genetics conference and then a study tour around beef research institutes through sort of montana, wyoming, kansas and places and became apparent to us quite quickly just how important the feed efficiency was.

Speaker 2 7:03

Everywhere had had feed efficiency bins recording it. Not just the universities but individual farms had them as well. So we could see the importance there. And then when we came back there was a group of us Hereford breeders that got given the opportunity to put them into the Tumania feed trial there, which was great. So four studs had yearlings in heifers or bulls. I put heifers in. The others might have put bulls in, it didn't really matter, they were separate pens. So that's great for us and also great for Hereford's that we got that data and we had a link size between the studs and also linked sires between our studs and the beef and lamb progeny test at Kepler, and the beef and lamb animals will be going through there now, so they'll all help the database, with them all being linked.

Speaker 1 7:55

Yeah, cool, excellent. We'll swing now to the sheep. And there has been a heavy focus on traits that improve animal health, welfare and reduce labour and the cost of running sheep. What do you think? Obviously, you're your own biggest client, so it's probably obvious, but why has this become a focus for you?

Speaker 2 8:14

For some reason it's always been something I've been interested in. I just did my honours in the mid-'90s on breeding sheep resistant to worms, and back in the early-'90 90s there was no shortage of research data. The australians started breeding um sheep resistant to worms back in the 70s. New zealand started in the 80s on research farms. We've basically had resistance to drenches pretty much since the drenches were invented and so yes, yes, I've been involved for a long time, but then more recently that's become more apparent. Over 30% of New Zealand farms now have resistance to triple combination drenches and it's become really serious for a lot of people. And the quick changes you can make with management sort of like grazing and cattle ratios and things like that are sort of fairly quick and cattle ratios and things like that are sort of fairly quick and instant and easy to see. But the moment you change those practices back again you've still got the same problem, whereas with genetics you don't get the quick fix, it's a slow burn. But once you start building it into your flock it's permanent and it's cumulative, and so what I call is compound interest. It's gradually going to build up and up and then if for some reason in 10 years time. Um, you can't run cattle for whatever reason. You've got to change your ratio back to sheep. They've got more chance of of coping if you're in a heavy sheet ratio.

Speaker 2 9:44

Yeah, and there's a variety of reasons, sort of with the drenches. The drenches are failing. The consumers don't want the product. I mean, obviously we have residue tests and we're obeying withholding periods, but still, the cleaner you can keep them the better. But also staffing Shepherds love being out on the hill mustering, drenching and dagging they're not so keen on and yes, I think the latest figures I saw just recently, it's costing them. Even with effective drenches it's still costing. Worms are still costing the New Zealand sheep industry well over $100 million a year, I think $70,000 per average farm. So that's a pretty big cost to bear, even if the drenches are working.

Speaker 1 10:34

Yeah, that's a big number and there's obviously lots of little subclinical losses that we kind of don't even get to see. You hosted the Beef and Lamb Prodigyy test, which I think's finished up now, but that was all all focused on on health and labor and labor saving trade, so I'm trying to avoid the words easy care, um, just because I think that's it's more important and that's more detailed than that. I guess run us through that trial. That was some of the more intense measurement that I've ever come across. Anyway, there's lots of different worm egg counts and day schools and yeah.

Speaker 2 11:05

So, as I said in the field, uh, I never knew there was so much work involved in the low input trial, but yeah, we did record pretty much everything. So it was started by a group of breeders that were already passionate about the low input. And sheep are very sensitive to environment. So if you've got sheep in the normal progeny test, they generally have to be run under best management practice. So they are getting drenched regularly. They're being measured for all the production traits, which is great. But what happens if the world isn't perfect and they don't get drenched when they need drenching? And it can quite quickly change the rankings of the rams in the production. So we finally got approval. 2019 was the first year of mating. We we just tagged about 1,100 of our commercial ewes and they were mated by AI to 17 rams from a variety of breeds from all over the country. So these were proven stud rams with breeding values. And then we measured the progeny, so DNAed. At tailing, we left the tails on the boys. We measured the tail length, then the usual weights. We weighed them at. We measured the tail length, then the usual weights, we weighed them at weaning, we de-exhorted them at weaning. We then drenched and sorry, not drenched weighed the the male lambs well, and the girls about every six weeks all the way through to may. I had a control mob running with them that was drenched every time we weighed them to compare the growth rates.

Speaker 2 12:41

Every lamb was individually worm feck counted in February and again in May. They were DAG scored in February and May again as well. At those events the ewe lambs went down to Invermay measured for feed efficiency. They were measured for methane while they were there. They were then also measured for methane when they were back on the farm on grass as well. And people talk about the feed changing the methane. And yes, it does, but it doesn't change the rankings.

Speaker 2 13:10

If a ram's progeny are low emitters on high protein diets, they'll also be low emitters on the others. They're ranking the same whether they're on grass or clover or whatever. And then those females have been through and measured for the maternal traits, went back to the ram and made it. We got all the kill data each year. The reason we didn't kill them until May on that first year was maybe we just wanted to collect as much data as possible and if we killed them in February it wasn't really achieving the goal. So that first year they went all the way from a weaning drench in December through to May without a second drench, which was quite impressive and followed the worm counts through the season. It was very interesting.

Speaker 1 13:51

Yeah, it's intriguing that and it's often the problem with any central protein test or any ESR evaluation generally, is that they have to be run to kind of average the management so that everyone's kind of happy, which means that the really robust animals tend to get a little bit disadvantaged because they would be, they could put up with a bit less management, whereas others need. Yeah, so this is obviously something really important for genetic evaluation to build that connectedness or linkage, depending on which side of the ditch you're on. But yeah, it is always a bit of a challenge to make sure that we've got that combination of production traits and welfare and labour traits considered. You've been a member of the Wormfeck Gold Group. I wonder if you could just explain what that means for those who are outside of New Zealand and kind of the importance of that group and why they've come together.

Importance of Genetics in Livestock

Speaker 2 14:41

Yeah, sure, just before we move on from the beef and lamb trawling, there are reports on the beef and lamb website for sort of production reports and stuff. But one thing I would like to comment on is people often question how much of your farm is management versus genetics? And people often talk about genetics only being 10%, maybe 20%. But when you put all the lambs in one paddock then the difference is 100% genetic. If they're in the same mob for five months and some are growing like hell and stay clean and have a low worm count and some are not growing very well and daggy, then that is, they're all managed the same. So the difference is purely genetics and the difference we had between some of the sire lines was huge across all the traits. So people seem to think, claim to think, that genetics don't make much difference. Well, they do. It's massive when you you see those results. They're all under the same management.

Speaker 2 15:41

You've got 50-kilo lambs that are clean, that can go straight to the works, and you've got 38-kilo lambs. When you dag them we weighed the dags and we had four kilos of dags of some of those lambs. That's a huge cost in labor, labor trying to get those lambs clean and trying to not make the works too grumpy. We had some some fairly serious talks with the works. Even though we'd paid the shearers to crush them properly, they they still weren't happy with them at the works, and trying to get shepherds to do that stuff is just such a huge cost. So, yeah, I just want to really reiterate just how important the genetics are. And when you see those rams most of those rams in that trial were all from studs that were already putting emphasis on the traits, the low-input traits. If you put a high-performance ram that hadn't put any effort onto the health traits, then they might have really hit a brick wall and it could have been a disaster.

Speaker 1 16:41

Yeah, and thank you for pulling me up there. It's really, really important. I think everyone that goes farming should run some form of progeny test, because until you see like I think it's always blown my mind and we get to see it fairly regularly as you do as a stud breeder, but I think people kind of get they never, ever see their different genetics under they see their genetics under their management often, and it's not until you do some sort of progeny test where you just see the true power of genes. I think every young person in ag should convince whoever's managing them to do some sort of progeny test, whether it's cattle or sheep or goats or whatever they're running. But it's so powerful to see when they're in the same environment, particularly these health traits but also just production traits the gap is always enormous. It's never a tiny gap.

Speaker 2 17:26

Yeah, and most commercial farmers. At best all they can do is judge the condition of the bull or the ram 12 months later and if he's held his condition, they think he's a great bull. But they've got no idea what his daughters are doing. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 17:40

Yeah, yeah, I think it's really really powerful stuff and I know that within our team, the people that have you can completely change someone's view on genetics by getting them to run a progeny test. I reckon yeah.

Speaker 2 17:54

Once you've seen it, you're dead right. It's powerful stuff. Yeah, just trying to get people to actually see it as a hard thing.

Speaker 1 18:02

Yeah, yeah, and I think, like you said, with DAGs, I think that's I could just in most talks I'll give these days I sort of sit looking into space, thinking about why for 200 years we kept cutting them off, when within about 10 you can kind of reduce it down to a much more manageable level with selection, like it is interesting to me, yeah, and to me DAGs was one of the biggest learnings of the trial, because it is a real cost and it is pretty heritable, like a lot of these traits.

Speaker 2 18:30

Yeah, you don't have to sort of put in shedding sheep or anything to really get rid of them. You can have some pretty woolly sheep that just don't grow DAGs, which is great and, like I say, it's bad enough. Trying to get shepherds to drench sheep, but trying to get them to crutch sheep is sort of even lower down the wish list.

Speaker 1 18:49

Yeah, and I ask, most crowds end ups, if you like, daging sheep, and I've never had one go up yet, so I don't think that's going to change.

Speaker 2 19:00

And the thing is, as a stud breeder it's it's free to measure. Yeah, I mean, we're weighing our lambs. Just have a look at the bum and put the number in. Yeah, um, it's done and um, and that was one of the reasons for sort of trying to drive the the low input trial in the start with um the group of breeders that were involved. So fec had been available since the early 90s when this trial started.

Speaker 2 19:21

We were nearly 30 years in and there was only 30 breeders countrywide measuring worm resistance. By doing the worm fec, partly because of the trial and partly because of the people realizing how serious strength resistance is, we've gone from 30 breeders up to about 90 breeders now measuring worm fat, which, as a stud breeder, is great because if there's only a few of you doing it it really limits where we can go and get outside size and the amount of times I've had to take a gamble on a stud ram. That's not measuring it and I agree with everything else he's doing, but he's not measuring the worms and time and time again he's got some great lambs at weaning. Four weeks later they're still pretty good. Another three weeks later they've hit a brick wall and they just can't handle it.

Speaker 1 20:07

Um, so by encouraging more stud breeders to measure it, it means we can all go faster, because we can all then use those genetics with more confidence and make less mistakes yeah, no, 100%, and that's awesome to hear, and I don't think the trend's that strong in Oz, but there's certainly been an uptick recently with more people getting into it and certainly something we badger away at trying to convince everyone to do within our clientele and anyone that's willing to listen. Yeah, it's just again. It's one of those things that, yeah, we're down to. I was at a place yesterday and they were down to.

Speaker 1 20:40

Startech has been the only, I guess StarTech and Zolvik has been the only actives and they won't last for long. So, once your triple resistance is in place, it's either change of shape, numbers or drastic changes of management or really work on the genetics. And, yeah, I think it's awesome to see the power of genetics in that space as well and really something we should have really been into. But it's great to hear that we have got a big lift in that. Where was I going next with that? Oh, yeah, if we talk about that group and I guess it's probably obvious what they're about obviously really hammering in or honing in on those worm resistance traits yeah, just talk to us about the group and, yeah, what the group's purpose is.

Speaker 2 21:26

Yeah, so that started a similar time to the low input trial Well, not when the trial started, but when the trial started being discussed, so probably about six or seven years ago now. So obviously it's a bit of a marketing thing, trying to promote the studs that are doing the work breeding these resistant sheep to sort of try and sell more rams. But again, a bit like the trial, it's also trying to encourage other breeders to get on board and we have criteria that new breeders can meet and get more and more breeders under the same umbrella and if you get enough traction, the ones that aren't doing doing it suddenly become the the odd ones out, rather than the other way around, and so more and more people start doing it. So the main criteria is um, you've got to be doing it for a while. You can't just go and buy someone else's high resistant ram and say, yep, I'm worm, fat gold, you've got to have some skin in the game. So we've got an eight year cut off if you've been doing it for six or seven and you've got some really good genetic gain.

Breeding for Resilience and Resistance

Speaker 2 22:29

We have a case-by-case basis of looking at it from the committee. Letting people in, they've obviously got to be resistant. See, it's okay measuring it, but are you actually making improvements? So you do have to be above the average of the worm feck resistance, but also you have to be above the average for the new zealand maternal worth for the production traits. There are some people that still think that resistant sheep that are bred to be resistant for worms aren't very good at production, and that's absolute rubbish. We've got a graph on our website the worm feck gold production, and that's absolute rubbish. We've got a graph on our website, the WormFact Gold website, and it's got the New Zealand maternal worth of the WormFact Gold breeders and it's got the same graph. It's got another line for the New Zealand average for all the dual purpose, and the WormFact Gold breeders'. Average maternal worth is well above the maternal worth for the rest of the breeders. So you're not only getting resistance but you're also getting increased production yeah, I think that's really clear.

Speaker 1 23:27

Like we know, the genetic correlations are either weak or non-existent with worm resistance. It's one of those great traits where you can put a fair bit of emphasis on without really slowing up too much on the other things other than selection pressure and other things. So it's only really those few examples in history where people have only focused on that one trait until you get you lose production because you haven't used those measurements. But single trait selection always has other outcomes. But when you have it used in a balanced breeding objective, like you guys do, it all comes together, which is the great thing.

Speaker 2 23:57

Yeah, I remember when we first started I mean we started back in the 90s we did a bit of measuring for worm resistance and it was before I was involved. It was the previous manager and, like the most resistant rams weren't very productive but um, so he actually gave up on it to start with. But what he did do was really reduce his drenches, so focusing on production with a lot less drenching. And then when I came home 10 years later and started measuring, by default with doing that drenching, he had increased it. So when I started measuring we were able to find some top performers that were also good at resistance. And then, with a bit of selection, we've had more and more top performers being good at performance and at resistance and once you've got those, they're pretty quick to multiply out.

Speaker 1 24:48

You would have thought about this as much as most. I mean, part of what I think we see in that depression of production is particularly early days when you just start selecting. You've got your normal distribution of animals. So you've got some in there that have no resistance at all and just putting larvae all over the pasture. Then you've got your really resistant ones who are firing up an immune response trying to kill worms. And I think if you run them and the Western Australians Joanne and John Carlson showed this If you separate them out and put the worm-resistant ones away from the susceptible ones, actually their production goes back to normal. It's just that they're suppressed through because their immune system is costly to run and they're actually killing everyone else's worms. So I reckon there's I don't know, it'd be interesting your thoughts but there's probably early days when you start selecting for it. You might see a bit of a depression, but then as the population moves to a happier spot, then that all swings around again.

Speaker 2 25:40

Yeah, I think the key is if you're still measuring production. While they're under that challenge, by default, you're breeding for resilience as well as resistance, yeah, and so the production doesn't actually drop, even if you've still got a lot of susceptible lambs in the mob, shedding a lot of eggs. Larvae the ones that you're really wanting to look for are still growing, and that's why it's really important, as you mentioned, single trait selection is always going to get you in trouble. It doesn't matter what trait it is, it's always going to get you in trouble.

Speaker 2 26:12

So, as long as you're looking at growth and resistance and it's not like you end up picking one in the middle of the pack because that's how far you've got to go to get one that's also good at resistance. No, I mean you've got ones in the top two or three percent of production that are also right up there for resistance. Yeah, um, and yeah, it's putting them under pressure for a prolonged period. You sort of and then measuring the best that are growing and with the lowest counts you're selecting for resistance, resilience and for growth, all in the same journey.

Speaker 1 26:48

Exactly. I guess with that we've never got a control station to kind of look like what a Rari Gorge would look like today if you hadn't done all this selection. But have you got a bit of a feel for sort of what this has meant for the commercial operation in rari gorge in terms of is it compared to how your grandfathers or the manager used to need to have off in the drench or or dag or that sort of stuff? Is that was?

Speaker 2 27:07

that a bit hard yeah it's it is always hard to measure and, like the shepherds and clients, they often ask me if I think it's working. And there are seasons where it's just a really bad wormy season. You get a mild, wet winter. A lot of eggs and larvae will overwinter, so you're starting off the spring on a higher level than usual and some of those summer's become quite tough. But then when you break it down onto the genetic level, the difference between the sires is huge. And when you see how poorly some sires are performing especially like when I sort of bought in sires that hadn't been measuring it, like I was culling 20 of my rams sort of eight weeks after a drench because they weren't handling it, and when I broke it down into sire lines, it was some of my home-bred sires where none of their lambs had been culled. They'd all been coping. And there was an outside sire where 50% of his progeny had had to be culled because they weren't handling the worms. And so if you transcend that through to the commercial population, I mean that's that's what would be happening. However bad you think the season is worm wise, it would be a lot worse if, if sort of the 20th percentile was suddenly the 80th percentile. That's basically where, where the whole flock would be.

Speaker 2 28:35

Yeah, yeah, and we're using very few drenches on the commercial flock, so the ewes haven't been drenched this century. We drenched the two-doos um at mating two years ago. That's the first time we've drenched them um, and it was just one of those really wet summers after a wet winter and, like I say, it was one where the worms had really overwintered. We'd started on high levels, um. And it also comes down to grazing management and stuff, because although we're 50% cheap, 25 cattle, 25 deer that sounds ideal for managing worms but unfortunately, just with deer fencing and the way the land, there are big areas of the farm that don't actually see a lot of cattle. The deer farm tends to be full of deer most of the year, so that's heavily stocked with deer. The sheep and cattle don't get in there much just because we've expanded the deer and haven't quite been able to keep in front with the deer fencing. So we've got areas that are pretty heavily sheep-based, very little drenching, and they're still going.

Speaker 2 29:43

I think if we drenched more we would get more production. There's no doubt about that. But it's the cost, and not just the cost of the drench but the cost of what's going to happen in the future. If you're reliant on those drenches and, like other people, the drenches stop working and you've got a naive flock, you're in real trouble. I'm fifth generation here. I've got kids. I'm sort of thinking as much 30 years out as I am three years out. Yeah, a bit of production loss now for the long-term gain, I think is is worth. But you've got to be careful you're not shooting yourself in the foot and going too far. Being too stubborn with your principles can be pretty costly.

Speaker 1 30:26

Yeah, we see the odd case of that where, like I think in your case, where you've been doing it within the rams coming in or on the better end of the bell curve, it's into the commercial flock. They're obviously being selected for it. But you see the odd person who just decides to sort of stop drenching without doing the 10 years of lead-in of sort of getting the genetics right, and that's a scary. It can be a scary place.

Speaker 2 30:49

Oh, absolutely. I mean as much as I believe in the genetics and believe there are better ways than drenching every three weeks. I mean I would always recommend anyone that's thinking of drenching less take baby steps. If you're drenching at three weeks, in my opinion that's too often. You should be drenching every six weeks. But if they try and do that in one the first year, they're going to have absolute disaster. But you only have to push it out a few days a year and before you know it you've halved your drench use. Yeah, yeah, do a few worm counts. Only drench when you have to. It's all the standard worm-wise production advice. Yeah, but just make sure your genetics are in there, because they're the only true long-term bit. They're the ones that stay around and get better and better. If your management changes back again and you haven't improved your genetics, you're just going to be back to square one overnight.

Speaker 1 31:42

Yeah, 100%. One thing I was just wanting to add in, I guess, was whether Carla was used during the progeny test, and if not, why not? Or if so, why? Obviously, in New Zealand at least, there's two different ways to breed for resistance. I'd be interested in your opinion of the two options.

Speaker 2 32:02

Yeah, so the Carla was discussed at a committee level and a science level for the trial. One of the main reasons it wasn't was the work with Carla and Wormfec. Wormfec has been proven to be the most efficient way of improving the genetics for worm resistance. Yeah, and the carla is good, but it's not as good as actually measuring the worm feck. So that's seen as the gold standard for measuring for resistance. Um, for some reason, in deer the carla actually seems to be better. Um, for reason, he starts using Carla in the deer and they're making good progress. So that was the main reason, just the fact that the signs points towards Carla being a much better option for selection.

Speaker 1 32:49

High heritability.

Speaker 2 32:51

Yeah, and we've done Carla ourselves on our stud a few years back when it first came out and we had much lower heritability and they all seemed to be high, which was good, but not as much difference between them. If you really want to make progress, you need to have a big spread of data. Yeah, like it, and that's why when you're doing worm fact, you've got to have a an average of 800 grams eggs per gram. Um, because you've got an average of 800, you're probably going to have a spread of 800 grams eggs per gram. Because you've got an average of 800, you're probably going to have a spread of a couple of thousand and you can really find the good ones from the bad ones. But if you only average one or 200, well, they're all pretty clean. You can't really tell.

Speaker 1 33:30

Lots of zeros and yeah.

Speaker 2 33:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 33:34

Yeah, excellent, the toughest question for the day. What was the last thing you changed your mind about? Yeah, excellent, the toughest question for the day. What was the last?

Speaker 2 33:39

thing you changed your mind about. Yeah, I should have known this was coming because, yeah, I listen to most of your podcasts and so I haven't sort of thought about this, unfortunately. But yeah, I mean, to be honest, I'm famous for changing my mind. I'm always changing my mind. I know a shepherd had a go at me once for changing my mind. I'm always changing my mind. I know a shepherd had a go at me once for changing my mind. I like to think of it as being flexible rather than indecisive, but yeah, no, I mean, I just love learning and reading and listening to podcasts. There's so much stuff we don't know, yeah, whether it's nutrition or animal health or whatever it is. Yeah, I just try and, without chasing myself around in circles, I try and keep up to date with all sort of the information that's out there and trying to put it into practice on the farm. And however much information you've got, it's actually quite. It's not always easy implementing it on farm because there's a lot of other factors at play with management and stuff.

Speaker 1 34:43

Yeah, and I think it is a good point. We are in a very fortunate time in history, I think, where you can be learning. There's no excuse to be sitting around for an hour driving somewhere or behind a mob of sheep. You've always got something you can be listening to or learning a bit. I mean, sometimes you just want to have that, appreciate the silence. But there's, yeah, lots of times where we're doing relatively mundane jobs, where we can be learning. These days, with podcasts and all the great information that's available to us, we're pretty. If you're not a lifetime learner now, you're not having a go.

Speaker 2 35:14

Yeah, and I can remember a few years back we were advertising for a manager and he was asking how we were doing and how we were doing certain things and how much flexibility he would have to implement new ideas. And I said to him there's almost nothing we're doing today that we were doing the same 10 years ago. We've changed sheep-cattle ratios, we've changed winter feed rotations, we've introduced clover, pure clover swards. We're always looking for ways that are going to help.

Speaker 1 35:47

Yeah, yeah, maybe just a supplementary question which I was going to ask before, but the deer is the only thing you run where you don't or you haven't got a stud of. Is that something that's just too hard to worry about? Genetics and you just got. Your bandwidth is to fill up, or you do play around in genes and deer yeah, no, it's just.

Speaker 2 36:05

Yeah, the bandwidth's full up, um, so we've got a very close alignment with um pale forest estate. Yeah, foresters and b11s they're. They're right next door to us so we know they're reared in exactly the same environment. And it's interesting sort of with the health traits, because I mean, people worry about yonis with deer. I don't think they'd have any issue me saying that they've had yonis and they've worked their way through it. They've done a lot of work at scientific level, had the researchers in and they're breeding pretty much breeding for resistance to yonis, and people say, oh, I don't have yonis, I don't have yonis. Well, absolute rubbish, you've got yonis.

Speaker 2 36:47

And I can remember the 2006 snow here there were farmers that were very good farmers and all of a sudden the best ag died and they got the vet out. So I always got yon's, got yonis. He said, no, rubbish, I don't have yonis. He said, well, yes, you do. You've actually just been a good farmer and you've been a good feeder and a good manager, that if they don't come under stress and they're well fed, they don't express it.

Genetic Immunity in Livestock

Speaker 2 37:07

But when it gets to snow like that, the wheels fell off and they did a trial in South Canterbury and killed a lot of wildlife and just about every possum, hedgehog, ferret, rabbit they found had some degree of yonis in it. So I mean it's right through the wildlife, everyone's exposed to it. So yeah, so, going to somewhere like Peel Forest, sort of actively worked through it and got a fair bit of resistance. I can remember Deere Improvement trying to sell me stags and their big selling point was oh, these stags don't have yonis, they're basically on a quarantined farm. We're absolutely clean and I said, well, that stag's going to last two minutes at our place because he's never seen the stuff.

Speaker 2 37:52

As soon as he comes here, he's going to sniff a hedgehog and he'll fall over.

Speaker 1 37:57

He's the wrong bloke to sell that story to.

Speaker 2 37:59

Yeah, so yeah, I mean, it's just like with the worms They've got to be exposed to it to develop an immune system to it. Yeah and yeah.

Speaker 1 38:08

Excellent. All right, robert, we'll let you get out there and go and measure something. But yeah, thanks very much for your time today and, yeah, all the best with keeping those four studs ticking over and yeah, look forward to continuing those genetic game graphs.

Speaker 2 38:21

Yeah, noel, thanks very much for a great term. Be on Excellent. Cheers, mate, cheers.