TOP SIRE 2025–2026 MERINOS ON FARM 2– The McLennan’s used to shear in the spring, but Austin said it was moved to March/April. “It blends in really well with our hay program and it’s become more popular in our area too,” he said. “It works well because we’re shearing before scanning, making it easier to manage the condition of the ewes, plus the ewes aren’t lambing with a heap of wool on them.” Under the guidance of wool broker Pat McNeill at AWN, Austin said they were able to improve their wool and breed the right sheep for their environment. “We’re not just after the wool, but sheep that have a bit of growth about them so when we put them on the lucerne and crop, they’re going to perform.” Austin said they’re happy with the wool cut and style of wool they’re producing and would like to continually improve on the early growth in their flock. “We don’t want to breed a massive Merino ewe, but we want fast growth in our sheep to reach their mature weight quickly.” Now that they’re Merino numbers have increased, Austin said they would class harder on the ewe flock. “We class up our hoggets each year and pull out about 25%, which go to a terminal. We’ll start letting the bottom five to 10% go now that our numbers are up.” The McLennan’s join their ewes in February/March for a period of five weeks. They then have a two-break before terminal sires are put in for another five weeks before being scanned. “We’d put a ram in with the empties and end up with these lambs that were too late and we couldn’t get the ewes back into the system,” Austin said. “Now, we are five weeks ahead in terms of our empty ewes. They’re lambing early enough that we can get them back into the cycle again the next year and, if you look after them well enough, you’ll likely get 75% of them back in the first joining.” They have been scanning for singles and multiples for the past 12 years, putting their focus into looking after the ewes accordingly to increase their lambing percentages. “It was hard to measure (before scanning), but we were losing a lot and didn’t even know. The first year we scanned we had one mob of twins, which lambed 100%, so we lost half of our lambs,” Austin said. “We had just let them down in terms of nutrition – it was a real eye opener. We realised we needed to do a better job with these ewes and we did.” Since then, Austin said they had been learning how to manage the ewes better and have focused on increasing shelter in the paddocks. “The best way we found to manage a twin-bearing ewe was to have them in good condition and provide them with a paddock with nutrition and shelter. We don’t want our ewes to be underdone going into a cold winter.” “ We don’t want to breed – 40 –
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI3ODI1