AVALON Ultimate
New Zealand's high performance, multi-disease resistant, low input sheep - The ultimate lifestyle sheep for farmers
Key traits of Avalon's Ultimate sheep are:
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High fertility, survival, meat and growth for both maternal/terminal options
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Bare breech and belly minimise dagging and shearing costs
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Short bare tails don't need docked, require less dagging and reduce flystrike
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No docking means less costs, less animal and people stress, mismothering and improved animal welfare
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Strong parasite resistance and facial eczema tolerance
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Less animal welfare challenges before and during lambing
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Lambs as a Hogget
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Progeny retain key traits - Perendale / Texel fleece
Avalon Ultimate sheep is the first ram breed in the world to have generated combined breeding values for tail length, tail bareness, breech bareness, dag score and belly bareness.
17kg weaning draft - No drenching, dagging or docking, just straight onto the truck.
Avalon Ultimate's are the first stud in New Zealand to record low input traits for tail length, tail bareness, breech cover, dag score and belly bareness.
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Ranked 2nd, 3rd , and 4th in New Zealand for dag score.
Avalon Ultimate and Avalon Perendale ewe hoggets under high parasite challenge and not dagged.
Less work, less cost, the Ultimate lifestyle sheep for farmers.
Avalon – Dag Score Trait Leader
Avalon has been selecting for low dag score along with worm resistance for over 33years. Their Ultimate ram 3049/15 is the trait leader for dag score in New Zealand (SIL June 2020)
Three of the top 5 rams in New Zealand for dag score are Avalon rams. The top Perendale ram is also an Avalon ram (233/18 ranked 11th).
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We don’t dock our Ultimate or Texel cross lambs and expect over 80% to remain dag free.
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Rams not selected for dag score can be adding up to an extra $6,000 in crutching and dagging costs (based on contract pricing) over each rams 5-year breeding life.
AgResearch scientist, David Scobie, with an Ultimate lamb in 2006. We started the Ultimate breeding program in 2004 and relied heavily on Scobies' advice in those early years.
Selection for low input traits
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No docking, less dagging
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97% of total lambs not docked
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85% of ewe lambs stayed dag free