Avalon Ultimates
This was launched at the Southern Field days in February 2004. Farmers already have high fertility, high growth rate sheep but this is dependent on high chemical and labour inputs (in most cases).
The ultimate sheep will have these high performance genes but not at the mercy of high input and high cost systems.
Already we are experiencing a shortage of experienced staff and a critical shortage looms in the shearing industry. Our consumers are looking for greater food safety and less chemical residues in our products. This will be ongoing.
The time to act is now, we need a high performance sheep with a low cost of production which will meet increasingly higher market demands.
Within our Avalon genetics flocks we already have these traits and it is a matter of identifying and multiplying them up. We have the one lifetime drench, no dags, high performance sheep already.
We are now at the stage of refining the traits that we desire for this breed, and increasing numbers to a level where we can apply the selection pressure required by this growing market.
The sheep industry has been focused on high per head performance but forgotten about how much it costs to achieve that performance. Lets attack both sides of the ledger to give our farmers greater net returns for less time and effort.
Current science is showing us that these traits are highly heritable (tail length 80%, clear belly 55%, clear breach 30% compared to growth rate at 20%). This shows how viable the program is for all commercial farmers.
Key Traits for Ultimate Sheep
- Weight - 60-65kg
- Fertility index 3.0+
- Hogget lambing at 1005
- Half of lambs to work at weaning
- Premiums for meat yield - low pH and zero residue
- Multi disease resistant
- One life time drench
- Short clean tail
- No tailing, dagging, crutching or belly wool
- Shorn annually or bi-annually
- No lambing beat
- Constitution to last 6 years in flock