HILL PADUA POLLS NEWSLETTER – August 2024

Written By Fred Echaniz Mayero

A copy of this Newsletter can be downloaded here 

The sale catalogue can be downloaded HERE

I cannot imagine a better lifestyle than been a farmer, the connection with the land and the animals that rely on you as much as you rely on them, is something only a farmer understands, but it does come with plenty of challenges. Every Farmer knows that we need to make the most in the high performing years because we know that often tough times are around the corner and even when we prepare as much as we can for those tough times, they still hurt in many ways.

At Hill Padua Polls, the same as many of our clients and friends, we have just gone through one of the toughest seasons in history, where low rainfall, and bad government strategies which lead to markets dropping to ridiculous levels, created a perfect storm making last season one to forget…

Understanding every Farmer that has suffered the last 18 months, we just hope everyone is getting above average rainfall, and a chance to turn things around, and we are hoping everyone can see green hope regardless the decisions made going through the rough period. To all who need to reach out and sometimes don’t have someone to share their stories, just remember that we are always one call away, and always happy to talk farming.

 

Hill Padua Polls this season: the importance of efficient lambs.

At Hill Padua Polls we were also hit with the bad season, where we harvested very poor crops, had very low stubbles and pastures that didn’t have a chance to build up with the short rainfall in 2023.

With that situation adding very low prices was a bigger challenge, we still had an excellent lambing of 123.1% (lambs marked to ewes mated). With high number of animals on the farm and very low grass production, turned into a very expensive year to run lambs through the feedlot and getting very little for them.

Once the June born lambs were weaned off, it was a race to get the wether lambs off farm, as well as the lower quality ewe lambs. We managed to get the first load of 500 lambs 5th of December, with an average weight of 50kg, second load of 570 lambs 20th of January with an average weight of 55kg and the very last of the lambs and the ewe lambs were sent off mid-March 370 lambs with an average weight of 58kg.

It was a bit of a relief to have the feedlot empty and keep the leftover feed for our heavily pregnant ewes in a year where we knew that a challenging lambing was coming ahead.

The high genetic FAT and EMD content of our animals combined with excellent growth give us always the option of running our lambs in very low maintenance mode or pushing them a bit and having them off the farm quickly, into the meat market. Animals with the wrong genetics just cannot provide such versatility.

Hill Padua genetics provide under right management, 1.2 – 1.3 lambs per ewe, and those lambs have the potential of hitting the ground running and perform as very efficient meat machines.

 

High Performance Ewes:

Our ewes have excellent performance potential, and a season like the one we just had is proof of that.

The benefit of having a ewe with high FAT and EMD is like having hay in the shed, they can store or save necessary Fat to maintain condition in very tough situations, giving our clients the potential of maintain performance regardless of what the season brings. This doesn’t mean they don’t need to eat; this just means that they are very efficient at converting feed into reserves of energy. A more efficient animal, in a good season allows you to have higher stocking rates and in tight seasons they will maintain performance or at least perform better than others.

High pregnancy rates, combined with high mother ability are some of the strengths of our ewes and lambs, let’s not forget that higher genetic FAT is also highly related to lamb survival.

Mating was done late December and January on poor stubbles but fresh harvested so still was good quality for a few weeks. After that it was a very long, hot and tough summer, for our ewes, and for us.

Pregnancy scanning was as always done by Bec Martin who is doing an excellent job scanning and recording every animal pregnancy and separating the early to the late pregnant animals. This was a year where I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest I knew our ewes were holding to body condition but going through a tough time. We couldn’t do the protein flushing we do every year to increase ovulation rates, we just didn’t harvest enough lupins and couldn’t afford to buy feed for this purpose.

We had an excellent result which can only be described with one word when I think of what our ewes have achieved in such a bad season, RESILIENCE.

Scanning results showed 4404 fetuses available on 2668 ewes mated. We had 132 ewes scanned empty, most empty ones were in stud ewes because of single sires. The conception rate was 96% and the pregnancy rate was 165%. The comment about this year pregnancy is that we scanned 135 ewes pregnant with triplets. Which is a record for us, that is over 5% of the total number of ewes pregnant with 3 lambs.

Lambing was done in very bad conditions, no feed in the pastures, so, supplementary feeding all the way through. Pretty much the situation was just like having them in a confinement lambing, just had the smallest mobs possible to avoid mis mothering but they were 100% of the time near where the hay and water was. Every pasture paddock had ewes, and we ended up with 22 small mobs from 68 to 220 ewes the biggest mob, not counting the 135-triplet pregnant drafted into 8 little mobs. Making 30 lambing mobs on the farm.

By the end of June Lambing was done, and we started lamb marking first week of July. Again, didn’t know what to expect in a season like this. We had once again our ewes performing at a high level against all odds.

Stud Ewes marked a total of 1841 Lambs out of 1421 ewes mated, for a Lambing of 129.5% to ewes mated. The triplets out of the Stud ewes had a fetus survival of 219%, which is the highest we ever had on triplets.

The commercial ewes did a great job themselves marking 1554 lambs of 1247 ewes mated, for a lambing of 125.1% to ewes mated. Triplets on them did a survival of 157%

Overall Results: 3395 Lambs marked out of 2668 ewes mated, for a final overall result of 127.3% to ewes mated.

Described on the table below there is a description the last 4 years lambing percentages where we can appreciate the excellent fertility and mother ability of our ewes through different seasons, showing a consistent performance to achieve an average of 125.2% for the last 4 seasons.

High FAT and EMD levels:

FAT and EMD are very important in our environment, I must say are important for every environment, but in WA where summer is always long, high levels of FAT and EMD are essential.

When we talk about FAT, we talk about efficiency. Ewes with high FAT will recover from raising their lambs a lot faster than an ewe with low FAT, making an efficient recovery to be able to repeat high pregnancy rates year after year. Also, high FAT ewes are excellent at holding condition, and survival on lambs is higher when they hold high genetic FAT.

Also, positive FAT is related to excellent eating quality traits, such as IMF Intramuscular Fat, Shear Force (tenderness of meat), and Dressing Yields, which add value to our type of lambs making us an excellent option for today and future markets.

We believe in the right interconnection of traits, where extreme High Growth lambs that have low FAT and EMD traits aren’t efficient lambs, just takes too much feed to finish them. We rather a more balanced line, with good Growth but also with a high FAT and EMD, this give us options for different seasons. In a year where prices are improving like this one, it makes sense for our lambs just to continue on a steady growth, and when we are happy with the price, we will push them and finish them, as they’ll be always nearly ready.

For this season, we decided that we need an income per lamb to be close to $200. We expect to have most of our lambs ready with 60kg by January – March and we are expecting prices to be north of $7/kilo. 60kg lamb at 46% yield= 28kg carcass at $7.20= $200 per lamb. We believe this year the longer we wait the better the prices will be, so steady growth, no rush.

In seasons like the last one, where we didn’t have the feed and prices were very poor, our very efficient lambs were off the farm at 6 and 7 months old early December and early January and we felt a big relief when the lambs were off the farm. Efficient lambs = more options.

On the breeding strategy we are always on a correcting breeding basis, where we try to level traits between two animals (ewe and ram), a low-Fat ewe should take a high Fat Ram. Admitting that we consider FAT our favorite trait, very often we find ourselves cheating, and when we come across a high FAT ewe it is very tempting to go with the high FAT Ram, and I believe that is the way we keep finding the extreme performers.

At Hill Padua we have been measuring and breeding for superior FAT and EMD for over 14 years now, making our data very reliable when it comes to these traits.

 

Genetic Trends:

With our Data Submitted to Sheep Genetics for 15 years we have the chance to follow and understand the improvements, developments, and the direction of our breeding for each individual ASBV trait.

In the next tables is the Genetic Trends of our animals (each year drop, Rams and Ewes) compared to the averages for Merinos in Australia for the main traits we normally use.

 

Improved Wool: Has been the focus on the last 4 years, aiming to increase wool cut and reduce micron to add value to our fleece, without loosing the good fertility, growth and carcass that identify our bloodline.

 

 

4 years after this our wool cut went up, micron keeps slowly going down, and the quality and whiteness of our wool is just excellent.

Sires like 210719 and 211050 have been really important for us on chasing that next level style of wool.

On the right is 210719 wool as a yearling ram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nowadays we are coming across animals with higher density, and slightly shorter Staple Length in some of them, which fits those clients that want to stay on a 12-month shearing, while also having plenty of selection for those who prefer shearing every 6 months.

The cost of shearing has pushed some of our clients to 12 months shearing and it is understandable.

It costs us 2.5 kilos of fleece to pay for shearing under current prices, but for us the condition boost and the management approach of a 6-month shearing is still the best way to go.

 

We can see in the genetic trends for wool that our fleece is still closing the gap with the industry, while micron is slowly heading down and Staple Length is showing a slight down trend line.

Growth:  Maintaining good early growth is important for our lamb performance, even when the main focus has been wool, we are making sure that we keep a decent gap above industry with our growth traits.

Carcass, Fat + Emd:  On that chase for the most efficient animal, an animal that will have high value moving forward, we understand the massive role of these two traits, and while working hard on all the main production traits, our focus is always on improving these two. For our environment these are the only traits that will guarantee that our sheep will maintain high performance regardless of what the season brings. The gap is big for our animals compared to the industry. And we still believe that it is early days to find out how far this trait can be pushed.

Merinos, with their old traditional line, had very low levels of Carcass traits, hence a very poor fertility and maternal ability and a very poor meat producing animal.

As merinos are changing in a very promising way, I have a strong belief that we are still far away from reaching the levels where these two Carcass traits are impacting negatively the other traits. We just need to find the right animals that can keep pushing all together to maintain the positive evolution of the Merino Breed into the future markets.

 

At Hill Padua, we are maintaining a very significant gap ahead of the industry. It is great to see the yellow line moving up, giving us the certainty that the whole industry is understanding more about the importance of these traits.

 

HP clients with excellent performance at LambEx Lamb competition:

Karradale Trading, Newman Family, Varley, WA. We wanted to extend our congratulations to the Newman family on their great result. Representing HP bloodlines in the biggest national lamb competition.

Craig and Anna Lisa have been very loyal clients to Hill Padua, they are excellent on the way they approach their sheep operation and always have had a very clear breeding objective. They have been selecting Rams based on their ASBVs, and also doing Genetic Flock profiles to ensure the right selection.

This year they decided to secure a spot for their lambs at LambEx Feedlot Carcass Competition and became part of one of the biggest trials for Lamb performance in the country.

1500 lambs from 30 exhibitors and 16 different breeds. The trial consisted of measuring the performance of the lambs transferred to market value, where meat and wool was considered.

Karradale Trading had an excellent result becoming the 5th overall line of lambs, and 2nd best wool clip. This is a huge result, considering some of the most productive lines of lamb in the country were measured alongside them. 1st and 4th overall belonged to the same producer and 2nd and 3rd also belonged to same producer, so it is fair to say that Karradale were the 3rd best producers on the trial.

Craig and Anna-Lisa entered the competition to obtain carcass quality feedback and get an idea of where their commercial flock were positioned in profitability when compared to cross breeds, as ideally, they want to keep a very simplistic mixed enterprise system on farm.

“It is clear that our Merinos can get the outcomes we are looking for, which was great to find out” Anna -Lisa said.

“It was a great result, we knew our lambs yield really well consistently over the hooks but didn’t expect to perform so highly overall” Craig said.

Other information about the trial:

1st Overall: Ricky Luhrs, Moralla (Trigger Vale Genetics). Merino x Merino.

2nd Overall: Barooka Trading (Glendemar Genetics) Merino x Hampshire Down.

3rd Overall: Barooka Trading (Glendemar Genetics) Merino x Merino.

4th Overall: Ricky Luhrs, Moralla (Trigger Vale Genetics). Merino x Merino.

5th Overall and 2nd best wool clip: Karradale Trading (Hill Padua Genetics). Merino x Merino.

We also wanted to congratulate Moralla, and Barooka Trading for their great result. When we look at their sheep and their bloodline, we understand that we all have similar breeding objectives, with efficient animals loaded with high carcass traits, and when we talk to each other, we talk about our type of merinos.

Personally, I believe that these results are clear evidence that the merinos we are breeding are the best choice for today and the future. Not only within Merinos but also within all breeds. A Modern Merino, that can perform as good or better than any crossbred for meat production while adding great value with the wool.

 

Sheep breeding has its joys:

It was middle of lambing at Mernowie Poll Merinos in South Australia, when they found this ewe giving birth to 4 lambs, a while after that there was 5, and just to make it a record and something we have never seen in the past she made it with her lamb number 6. Just something that brought a lot of Joy for Ian and David Rowett.

The ewe was inseminated with a Hill Padua sire HP210273, while this has nothing to do with the ram. But still a good story to tell and definitely the type of story to be remembered for a long time. The ewe managed to feed and save 5 of them, which is a great effort by that excellent mum.

 

2024 RAM SALE Monday 16th September.

 

Our Annual On-Property Ram Sale will be on Monday 16th of September at Hill Padua Polls, 792 Strutton Road, Three Springs, WA. The sale will be interfaced by AuctionsPlus.

This year we will be offering 132 Rams on Auction.

After breeding a total of 809 rams, we quickly reduced the number on structure to 550 which were fully measured.

The line of rams for this year is excellent, very good shapes, good structure and very white wools. This year we have had 230 milimitres of rain in 75 days for June, July and August, and followed by plenty of cloudy days have given the opportunity to test our wool on a higher rainfall environment. We are happy with how the wool looks, spotless, super white, very soft.

As always, Rams will be delivered to all WA buyers. We will also offer a Freight Rebate where we will be covering half of the cost of transport per Ram for Eastern State buyers. We had a quote by Dick Smith Transport on route Muchea – Ceduna – Pt Augusta – Dubbo. For more information, please contact Fred 0427541707.

We understand this has been a tough year for the sheep industry, but we can see that conditions are turning around very quickly. In years like this it’s even more important to have the right genetics producing at high efficiency.

This year ram sale will be offering a very balanced line of rams with excellent ASBVs averages. YCFW is sitting very close to the industry average. YSL is sitting in the Top10%, PWT is very close to sit on Top20% and YWT sitting in the Top20%, while YFAT is well into Top10% and YEMD well into Top 20%

 

Everyone will be welcome, as Anthony always says, “just come and have a look”. The sale catalogue can be downloaded HERE

A look back at HP Journey by David Groves.

David became the Livestock Manager in 2008 and has a great understanding of all the challenges HP went through from the beginning, to what it is today. David retired from his position in 2019 but since then he has been involved with all the decisions regarding breeding and selection, having an excellent eye for correct animals.

After coming from a traditional merino background with a few years’ experience working for an AMS ram breeder. It was an introduction to breeding a true Dual-Purpose Merino sheep with classer Ken Duxson.

We started measuring body weight, Fat and Muscle, as well as micron and wool weights, and submitting the data to Sheep Genetics to obtain our first ASBVs. It soon became apparent that Hill Padua were already ahead of the game as far as meat traits and reproduction for the Merino breed. Lambing percentages since 2008 were always well in excess of 100%.

In the last 5 years under the management of Fred, emphasis has been placed on increasing wool cut without affecting fertility, meat quality or the free growing nature of the fleece. Sire selection over the last few years has shown an excellent increase, but like every sheep breeder we are still looking for the Holy Grail.

There are groups within the HP Bloodlines that have some of the best YFat and YEmd in Sheep Genetics, while producing plenty of wool with moderate micron.

With influences from outside (weather, politics, processers), confidence in the sheep industries is low, but I believe with the reducing number of breeding ewes in the state flock, it is a good time to keep your sheep to benefit from resurgence of meat and wool markets hopefully in the near future.

I wish all clients a good and prosperous season and encourage them to follow the Hill Padua policy of breeding a real Dual Purpose Merino” David Groves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2023 Sale Catalogue and Ram Sale

Its HERE, after much discussion, sorting and classing we have finally settled on what we believe to be the best 153 rams to put up for auction this year.

All these animals are exceptional in there conformation, wool style and handing and have the ASBV to back them up.

Our On-Property Ram sale is set for Monday the 18th September 2023 where we will be offering 150 Rams with excellent genetics and full ASBV’s backed by Genomic testing. Selected out of 700 Rams, the final Sale Team is based on the better performance Hill Padua Rams on ASBV’s, Genomic testing and a strict classing on conformation.

You can down load the catalogue by CLICKING HERE

 

HILL PADUA POLLS NEWSLETTER July 2023

HILL PADUA POLLS NEWSLETTER

July 2023

WRITTEN BY FRED ECHANIZ MAYERO

 

A copy of this newsletter can be downloaded HERE

 

2023 has presented a very challenging beginning, with a really late break of the season and very short overall rainfall and markets that have in our opinion hit the lowest point for some years.

To keep a strong confidence, we like to put the balance over the last 3 to 5 years and we do understand that we had in the last 2 years top prices and excellent production, quite opposite of what we are living now but give us a different perspective of our business and the industry. With very volatile prices not only for our final product but also the cost of production, it is for certain very difficult to make decisions.

In our honest opinion good genetics and more efficient animals are part of the answer to make the most of every mixed farming business. We believe that we have some of the most profitable genetics for today and the future.

Rams in Photo: HP221295 (left), HP221731 (middle left), HP220742 (middle right), HP220070 (right).

High Fertility + High performance lambs.

One of the biggest differences between our merinos and the traditional merino is the fertility and the maternal ability of our ewes.

Mating was done in the same hot conditions, and we had an excellent scanning result on our flock ewes. 1523 ewes pregnant with 2554 fetuses in 1585 ewes mated, for a conception rate of 96.2% and pregnancy rate of 161.5%.

On the stud ewes we had a bit of trouble with a couple of Single Sires that didn’t perform this year. HP200007 was sick for part of the mating and missed 30 of 80 ewes. And HP200869 decided to have a summer holiday and missed 26 out of 50 ewes mated to him. These things are always on hand on the stud side, it doesn’t take much for something to go wrong when there is only one ram in a mob and no one to back him up. We remember back in 2019 when one of our best sires HP190523, mated as a lamb back then, impregnated one out of 40 ewes, but he did a good job with that one having twins. 2023 Stud ewes scanning result: Ewes mated: 1206. Ewes pregnant: 1105. Fetuses: 1809. Conception rate 91.6%. Pregnancy rate 150%.

In 2023 we had one of the toughest beginnings of the last 5 years, with a really late break of the season, having the first decent rain beginning of June, and having some grass available mid to late June. Our lambing begins around the 20th of May, and it goes on for 6 weeks, so lambing was mainly on dry conditions and nice weather, but with our pastures not producing any grass. Supplementary feeding was needed through lambing to feed the ewes and lambs.

This is something we rather not to do, it creates problems bringing all the ewes and lambs to feed at the same spot. A lot of mismothering can happen, and we thought that we were going to be in trouble but there was no way around it, they needed supplementary feeding.

The excellent maternal instinct of our ewes and the low number of ewes per mob was part of the reason why we still had a good result. We now have 3436 healthy lambs marked of 2791 ewes mated. For an excellent result in a tough year. 123.1% lambing to ewes mated, or 130.7% to ewes pregnant.

On the next table is the last 3 years’ lambing %.

 202120222023AVERAGE 3 YEARS
NUMBER OF EWES MATED2909282727912842
PREGNANT EWES2808272226282719
NUMBER OF LAMBS MARKED3533365334363540
LAMBING %121.5129.2123.1124.6
LAMBING TO PREGNANT EWES125.8134.2130.7130.2

 

Our lambs are very efficient at gaining weight and reaching finished conditions to approach the meat markets. For the last 3 years we have sold all our whether lambs with weights between 55kg to 60kg, at 6 to 9 months of age. We also managed to get 1 shearing of them before they go with very good SL (Staple Length) and low micron that makes a very valuable fleece.

Also, our lambs have excellent dressed yield, normally as high as XB lambs and 3 to 4% higher yield than traditional merinos.

We have had reports from plenty of clients reaching high lambing %, in many cases higher than our results. It is in our clients where we find our biggest confidence, as they are the true expression of our bloodlines.

 

Improved wool cut

We listen to our clients, and one of the criticisms we have in the past was the wool cut of our animals. In 2019 we decided to chase more wool, believing that our animals had the potential to increase the wool cut and to hold on to their fertility and carcass Performance. Back in 2019 the wool cut of our ewes was below 5kg per ewe.

We always measure the wool performance once a year, and that is on pre lambing shearing which is the only time we do our adult ewes only. This year we had a wool cut of 2.8kg per head with an average Staple Length of 70mm on our adult ewes for 6 months shearing and coming out of summer. Our winter shearing always does a bit better than summer one, so we know we are now sitting over 5.6kg of wool per head with 19 micron. Once we introduce the new generation and take out some older ewes, we are confident that that number will be closer to 6kg per head, that was our goal 3 years ago, and that’s where we want to stay.

 

High Growth, Emd and Fat

Importance of high Genetic Fat FAT: Animals with higher levels of Fat have a superior resilience against nutritional and environmental challenges. Animals with good levels of Fat normally allow our sheep to cruise on high performance mode regardless the seasons variations. When a flock has high levels of Fat normally you could increase stocking rates by reducing maintenance requirements, lambs will be born with more energy to survive and perform from birth, and animals will maintain body weight and score condition in tough times. Improves the reproduction of animals.

Importance of high Eye Muscle Density EMD: Animals with high levels of Emd are normally strong animals, on the ewe side, it will increase reproductive rates, and on our lambs will increase the dressing %. It is highly related to worm resistance and higher Staple Strength. In other words, stronger and healthier animals.

One of the busiest but also very exciting parts of the year is when we take all the yearling measurements in our young animals, these measurements give us a clear indication of the breeding direction and help us to understand our animals in a better way.

The measurements for Yearling Weight, Eye Muscle Density and Genetic Fat are normally late April, and our animals are 11 months old then. They run through a scale where the weight is recorded and the Emd and Fat measurement is taken by Michael O’Neill, who has been scanning all our young animals for 13 years now. He literally has seen every animal and every generation on this farm, and he has a huge understanding of our evolution on those traits.

Our ewes normally measure higher for Fat than our Ram lambs, and our Rams normally higher for Emd. Some huge results came through this year, we had last year 12 animals in total over 5mm for fat through 1300 animals measured, this year we recorded 43 ewes and 11 Ram lambs over 5mm of Fat on same number of animals measured.

The average Fat on our ewes for this year was 3.8mm on 660 ewes. David had an interesting comment about this: “Back in the days a 3.8mm measurement was that special ewe only, today that’s the average”. The top fat measurement was 8.2mm for a HP190523 daughter, Sister of the top ewe measurement last year with 7.5mm and the 2021 top Ram Measurement with 5.7mm for who have become one of our top Sires HP210273.

All our animals are run all year as one mob for the Ewes, and one mob for the Rams, always Paddock run which makes all these to be true and honest measurements.

 

Hill Padua Polls Genetic Trends.

With our Data Submitted to Sheep Genetics for 14 years we have the chance to follow and understand the improvements, developments, and the direction of our breeding for each individual ASBV trait.

In the next tables is the Genetic Trends of our animals (each year drop, Rams and Ewes) compared to the averages for Merinos in Australia for the main traits we normally use.

Growth Traits:

The tables used below are supplied by SheepGenetics (MLA).

In blue Hill Padua Polls, In green Merino Average. Our Animals are sitting way above average for these two traits. With our high selection of Rams, I would say that most our Sale Rams will be positive for Growth to most flocks throughout Australia.

 

Carcass traits:

In blue Hill Padua Polls, in green Merino average. In these two traits we consider our Stud to be one of the top performance studs in the country, with animals being in the top 10 for these traits in the country on a data base of over 80,000 animals born and submitted to Sheep Genetics in 2022. Rams like HP220025, who will be part of our sale team is No 9 in the country for his YFAT. HP220043 No 2 in Australia for YEMD, HP221439 No7 in Australia for YEMD, and HP221140 No10 in Australia for YEMD.

 

Wool Traits:

In blue Hill Padua Polls, In green Merino Average in Australia. We have been working hard on our wool, and as the first picture shows we are closing the gap with the industry average for YCFW.

With our high selection within our Rams, Most of the Rams that will form our Sale Team will have above average YCFW.

Staple Length, we are positioned as one of industry leaders. Which gives our clients the option of shearing twice per year depending on their own decision. For this trait we have 4 Rams in the top 10 Rams in the country out of 76,392 Rams.

For YFD (Micron) we have been using lower micron rams within our sires, and corrective mating all our ewes in the stud, we are working on bringing micron down as we increase wool cut, this way we will increase the value of the fleece per animal. The challenge is to do this without losing any Fertility, Growth or Carcass traits. As the pictures show, we are improving on YCFW, reducing Micron, and still improving our Staple Length.

 

Measurements and Raw Data.

The Raw data is all the measurements we made through the year to each one of our new generation animals.

The Raw data then is submitted to Sheep Genetics, and with the animals DNA and Genomic test we can find their pedigree for a better estimation of their breeding values. We spend a lot of time analyzing, comparing, and understanding our animals’ Raw data and their ASBVs. Often, there are things we do not understand, for these situations we have the support of Belinda Steers who is our Data Manager. She has a deeper understanding of everything related to ASBVs.

It has become important for us to look not only at ASBVs, but also the Raw data in some cases, especially when we decide the top end Sires.

For this year in the Ram Sale catalogue, we will include the Rams CFW% (Clean Fleece Weight % Raw Data) which is the Rams performance in the last shearing compared to the 600 Rams measured. We will also include the weight at 11 months old which is considered yearling weight for ASBVs.

 

Ram and Ewe Sales.

Our 2022 Annual Ram Sale was very good for our Stud, confirming that our clients remain happy and loyal with our genetics.

The Ram Sale presented a full clearance of 124 Rams sold out of 124 Rams available, with an average price of $1870 per Ram. After the sale the demand was high for our Helmsman Sale (Rams in shed after Sale) selling another 38 Rams for an average price of $1000

Our top price Ram, $6000 was a beautiful Dual-purpose Ram, with beautiful structure, High YFAT, high YEMD and with a beautiful, long and soft fleece with 16.2 micron.

This Ram had a high stud profile, and we were a bit sad to let him go, but happy that he went to a really good home, the Alexander Family from Narrogin.

Our ewes had once again high demand, with all or ewes going to repeated clients for breeding purposes. The young ewes went to McNamara family from Badgingarra, while the older ewes went to another long-time client Justin Manns, Beverley.

 

YARDSTICK SIRE EVALUATION

The tables used below are property of Yardstick Sire Evaluation.

2021 was the first time for the stud to introduce a Sire to a Sire Evaluation. We sent HP191060 Yardstick (Katanning Station) in 2020 to have his progeny measured and compared to other Sires in Australia.HP191060 is a Ram with good Growth, good Fat and Emd, and good fleece weight with a shorter Staple Length. A good Dual Purpose Ram that delivered good progeny for last year’s Ram Sale and he will again have some good Rams in this year’s Ram Sale.

He dominated the Dual-Purpose aspect of the evaluation, been selected the top DP+ Ram with a really good performance for Growth, Fat and Emd.

Yardstick evaluates the progeny performance of each Sire in the same conditions.

 

Table for Weight, Carcass, and WEC: In this table we can see HP191060 progeny performance was always within the top 3 for Growth, being the Top for Post weaning weight.

Also was by far the best performance Sire for EMD (Eye Muscle Density) and FAT (Genetic Fat).

For WEC (worm egg count) he was within the average, this is a trait we cannot measure for our conditions in Three Springs

Table for Visual Traits: In this table we can see that HP191060 had very good measurements. It was one of the two best rams for BCOV (Breach Cover), which is very good for non mulesed animals, a clear example that our bloodlines don’t need mulesing.  HP191060 was also the best sire for BWR (Breach Wrinkle) at marking and BWR as hogget, a clear example of our bloodlines been wrinkle free, easy-care animals.

Table for Wool:  We know our animals, and we understood that this was something that we were not going to be on top. We did expect to be on average or close to average compared to high Wool Cut Sires. Our sire did 100 grams below average, for what we considered a good performance. Also his progeny micron wasn’t too high and his Staple Length was very good for a Ram that we have always considered to be Short Staple Length.

Table for Indexes:   HP191060 was the Top DP+ (Dual Purpose Plus) Sire in the evaluation.

In 2022 we introduced to Yardstick our Sire HP200007. His progeny is measured through this year. This is a Good Dual-Purpose Sire, with good Growth, positive FAT and EMD. Here we can see that his first measurements are positive being within the Top 3 sires in most measurements.

We have gained confidence in our Sires performance when compared to other sires in the same conditions. This year we have introduced to Yardstick Sire Evaluation our Sire HP211050, and we have also introduced to Balmoral VIC Sire evaluation our Sire HP210273.

Both these Sires progeny will be evaluated in 2024.

 

2023 RAM SALE Monday 18th September.

Our Annual On-Property Ram Sale will be on Monday 18th of September at Hill Padua Polls, 792 Strutton Road, Three Springs, WA. The sale will be interfaced by AuctionsPlus.

This year we have decided to increase to 150 the number of Rams on Auction. 26 more than last year in the Sale, but we won’t have the traditional Helmsman Auction.

Rams are in very good condition, on the first week of August we still have 260 rams from which the Sale team will be selected.

After attending Bendigo Sheep and Wool exhibition, looking for new genetics, we gained confidence of our own breeding. We believe we have some of the most balanced Rams in the country between good conformation, top performance, and good data.

For this year in the Ram Sale catalogue, we will include the Rams CFW% (Clean Fleece Weight % Raw Data) which is the Rams performance in the last shearing compared to the 600 Rams measured. We will also include the weight at 11 months old which is considered yearling weight for ASBVs.

As always, Rams will be delivered to all WA buyers. We will also offer a Freight Rebate per Ram to Eastern State buyers as the cost of freight has a massive input on Ram price when transporting to Eastern States. We had a quote by Dick Smith Transport on route Muchea – Ceduna – Pt Augusta – Dubbo. For more information, please contact Fred 0427541707.

We understand this has been a tough year for the sheep industry, but we also believe and hope that soon the conditions will turn around as they always do. In years like this it’s even more important to have the right genetics producing at high efficiency. Everyone will be welcome, as Anthony always says, “just come and have a look”.

 

WRITTEN BY FRED ECHANIZ MAYERO

 

Hill Padua Polls Newsletter 17/08/2022

It has been a really good couple of years at Three Springs based Hill Padua Polls.

2021 was a year where the combination of good weather and good prices helped for what it was an excellent season not only for our sheep but also cropping department. For this current year the production cost is higher, but the profit margin is still there. We are focused on a mix farming operation which in our understanding it is much more stable than only cropping. While in our area the number of sheep is reducing drastically, we have farmers like Adam who, been part of Hill Padua have started a separated sheep production and have been successful in the first 2 years. Great example of people walking into sheep production with great success. There is plenty of room for profit in mixed farming in the Midwest.

Excellent results from last year

Last year was our first time at Dowerin field days, where we had on display some of our Rams with all their ASBVs and also had the chance to meet new people and catch up with many clients. We are really looking forward to 2022 Dowerin field days.

The ram Sale was a success, all the 120 Rams offered were sold, for a top price of$7400 and an average of $1380. We are really happy to keep sending out our genetics. We really appreciate the trust of our clients in our bloodline, and we are committed and working hard to continue improving to provide the best product as possible. We love listening to our clients’ needs and opinions, as we believe that we need to work as a team.

Our September wool clip sold for 20% more than market price for the same micron wool, based on the high staple strength of 71 N/kt. This Clip was acquired by a top European Fashion designer for their winter collection.

We also have high demand for our 700 Surplus Ewe Lambs, in the end, the 16 months old ewes were sold to a repeated client Andrew Cummins in NSW for a price of $330.

Merino enterprise goals

Beginning of 2020 we had a few changes in farm staff, David Groves who was the Sheep manager for 12 years, stepped aside from his position, and Fred assumed as Stud and Sheep Manager.

Also, Covid happened, and our Classer and very important piece of our breeding program Ken Duxson, couldn’t travel from Victoria. That led to Fred and David to step up and fill Ken’s boots.

After this Staff changes, we decided to also set up new goals for reproduction and breeding.

Reproduction, Increase Lambing percentages: We knew the fertility potential and the mothering ability of our ewes. The high scanning %, the way they look after their lambs and the big udders to feed more than one lamb were clear signals that we needed to explore higher lambing %. We wanted to increase our marking % from 107% average in the last 10 years to 120%.

Improving score condition: We believe that after weaning and before mating is our opportunity to recover and prepare the ewes for a new joining.  So, after weaning we started supplementing our ewes with the goal of improving score condition, even when in spring there is plenty of grass, supplementing save a little bit the pastures and improves our ewes’ daily diets. Supplementation was based on trial feeding lupins and hay. We had Score condition 3.5 to 4 by December when joining started.

Flushing: We decided to invest on “flushing” our ewes for joining. Flushing consisted of trail feeding lupins for 14 days, we feed our ewes 500 to 600 grams of Lupins per ewe, every day, 7 days before joining and 7 days after we put the Rams in. Flushing is really important to increase ovulation rate and, hence, scanning rate. This is an investment of about 20 to 22 ton of lupins per year.

Campyvac on maidens: we were disappointed with the lambing % on our Maidens in 2020, and we were able to observe that ewes that scanned pregnant never delivered their lambs, so we thought it was a good idea to treat our young ewes for Campylobacter which is a bacterium that cause abortions. Maiden ewes improved from 89% lambing in 2020 to 110% in 2021, and 109% in 2022.

High volume of Rams: Our Joining always starts around 20th of December, and we join for 6 weeks, which is over 2 reproductive cycles. Because of our summer conditions where we have 40c degrees, we understand that it is a hard work for our Sires to serve all the ewes, so we decided to increase to 2.5 – 3 Rams every 100 ewes.

The combination of these 4 steps have become very important to achieve high scanning %. We decided also to change our Scanning to the service of Bec Martins, which is recording every ewe at scanning for singles, twins, and triplets, which is giving us an extra tool at the moment of selecting our next breeding ewes. At this stage we have two years recorded in all our adult ewes and there is interesting to see how many ewes have repeated twin pregnancy for two years. Scanning results for 2021 was 157% with 96.5% pregnancy rate, and 2022 was 159% scanning with 96.3% pregnancy rate.

Reducing Paddock and Mob size: in 2021 we had about 20km of fencing done with the goal of splitting paddocks. It is known that every time we split a paddock in half the production of the paddock by rotation increases about 20%. All Paddocks bigger than 120 hectares were divided in half. We still have some paddocks of around 100 hectares that will be divided in the future. We believe that this is helping with pasture performance as well as sheep health. Reducing mob size have also been important to reduce miss mothering. We have around 20 mobs that goes from AI and Single Sire groups of 50 to our biggest mob of 280 ewes. We are working on reducing our mob size to 200 ewes maximum. The smaller the mob, the better result.

Checking and feeding through Lambing: We have taken the decision to assist and feed our ewes through lambing. This can be considered as a negative thing for miss mothering, but We have clear understanding that the more we interact with our ewes and the more we are around, the less problem it is. At this stage we can feed, check, and assist our ewes and lambs through lambing without any miss mothering.

Fox baiting: we realized that foxes were a problem for us, so we have been baiting for foxes around the property with very good results.

Finding the right number: We believe that sometimes less is more. So, we have been trying hard to find the right number of ewes for our system. We are slowly reducing our number of ewes but increasing our number of lambs.

Hill Padua Results: A combination of all this and high fertility bloodlines have been the reason for our improvement and results.

 202020212022
NUMBER OF EWES MATED307829092827
SCANNING %148%157%159%
PREGNANCY RATE94.2%96.5%96.3%
NUMBER OF LAMBS MARKED327535333653
LAMBING %106.4%121.5%129.2%

 

This isn’t only a result for us, we are also very proud of our clients achieving same or even better lambing results with our genetics. Cases like Harley Sears, Adam Thomas, Robbie Weir, Brian Baxter, Bec Martins… just to mention some, but honestly, we are all working together, and we are not afraid of helping our clients, so we can all improve together. Our genetics are nothing if we don’t have our clients that believe on what we are doing and the type of Merinos we have.

Breeding:

After Fred and David took over from Ken, we decided to set a new goal on our breeding program. Listening to our clients we understood that we needed to provide more wool cut, but without losing our Growth, Fat and Emd. So, the transition will be slow, but we are really working on it.

 

Ken set up an amazing line of ewes, they are excellent on their Growth, Fat and Emd measurements as well as very fertile, so, we couldn’t ask for a better starting point.

We thought that we needed to be honest with ourselves and set an approachable goal. We started on the low 5kg per ewe, we are now in two years in 5.5kg and our goal is 6kg of quality wool. At this stage we believe that 6kg will be good enough, and more than that will be too risky to lose the type of sheep we have and turn too much into just another traditional merino stud, and we do not want to go that way.

It is clear for us that we need to maintain the soft skin, plain body, and wrinkle free ewes that Ken left us and slowly add some density. Also, it is very important for us to maintain a long staple length to achieve 60 to 80mm of wool length every 6 months.

An aspect that we have been working very hard is on structure. This is the figure we are chasing the most, leg problems are not accepted, and we are working very hard on body depth. For this year Ram sale, we can say that we have a very correct sale team regarding structure.

Photo: Stud Reserves, 210274 left and 210273 right.

We are now carefully selecting Rams with higher wool density, better nourishment, and good structure. In this search for Rams with better wool, we came across a few interesting Sires.

Sire 180703, have been an excellent sire to improve our wool, having positive fleece weight and really long staple length as well as fertility.

Sire 191060, was the heaviest wool cut of his year’s drop and he is a good for growth and meat Ram as well.

Sire 190523, David spotted him as a Lamb at post weaning weight with just 7 months of age, and as we all like to do, he named him David, as it was “his” ram. He was the second heaviest wool cut of his year and had a staple length of 100mm in 6 months, 16.5 micron and a very bold crimp that you couldn’t believe he was so low micron. He was also excellent on his Growth, Fat and Emd measurements, as well as being very deep, plain body, good legs and really masculine with a  pure head. Making him a no brainer as a keeper and Sire for our stud. In 2019 joining we try to use him as a lamb, and he went out to a paddock with 40 ewes as a Single Sire, he came back very big and fat and impregnated 1 of the 40 ewes. In 2020 we did AI and Single Sire with him and have no problems. Last year he was killed by dogs, which was a very sad October day at Hill Padua. This sire will have some very nice Rams on the 2022 Sale Team, and he provided us with a Ram 210273, which is in our opinion one of the best Rams we have breed, excellent structure as well as top measurements, it is a perfect example of the type of Rams we are trying to breed.

In addition to our breeding program, we have decided to invest in full DNA and Genomic testing all our Nucleus animals, aiming for an accurate pedigree and an more accuracy in our ASBVs.

Our breeding goal is very clear, we wanted to provide to our clients a good option for today’s markets, with high fertility, fast growing animals, and high-quality wool.

We believe we have a very competitive product; in the last 2 years, helped with good market prices we have sold all our whether lambs for an average price of over $200, and we are always able to achieve good prices for our wool. We can say that at today’s market prices, 1.2 lambs per ewe and 5.5kg of wool is producing an income of $300 or more per ewe on farm. We understand that every ewe that doesn’t raise a lamb it is an expensive ewe to have on farm.

2022 Ram Sale

This year’s Ram sale will be Monday 19th of September, will be on farm at 792 Strutton Road, Three Springs, Inspection 10am, sale 1pm.

We will have 124 Rams on offer this time, we will have the normal 120 on the sale team, with what we consider the best 20 to start with, but this year and after listening to some of our clients, we decided to have 4 of our Reserves or keepers on the sale as well, some of them will be on display at Dowerin and Newdegate.

This year’s Rams is the first drop where the mating was done by Fred and David, we didn’t use any external semen for this drop, but there will be plenty of Rams with East Loddon and Anderson Rams as a Grandsire or bloodline. Rams had a really good early growth and that gave them the chance to express themselves on their ASBVs.

We are proud to say that this is the first year where the average of our sale team is sitting Above the Australian average for Ycfw, with some animals reaching Top10% and Top20%. This is a clear indication of the direction we are heading. The Sale Team average is also sitting on the Top10% In Growth, Fat and Emd and maintaining a micron average of 18.5. Also, all rams have been DNA and Genomic tested for more accurate pedigree and data.

We are really looking forward to having you at the farm on Sale Day, as Anthony always says, Just come and have a look.

If you can’t make it, the sale will be interfaced in Auctionplus, and closer to the date will be announced delivery dates for the eastern states.

The Hill Padua Polls team wish everyone is having an awesome season.

2020 Sale Team and Sire ASBV’s

After a below average season in 2019 for crops and pastures, we struggle with a real short demand of stubbles and pastures feed. We have used more than normal reserves to push our sheep through a tough summer. Adapting the best way we can to climate change, we’re taking the path of growing Oaten Hay and more Lupins during winter to feed our livestock when is needed. Considering all this, our paddock grown Ram Lambs have develop in a fantastic way.

We are focused on growing the best dual purpose sheep we can, on our continuously search for the most profitable individuals, we are selecting for conformation, structure, wool quality and fertility. Based on our ASBV data we are confident that we are heading in the right direction…

For the 2019 drop, in addition to our selected AI Sire Rams we have introduced two Anderson Rams to our bloodline, and we are able to offer some of this progeny. This year we are offering 120+ Rams on our Sale day, Monday 21st of September.

Due Covid-19, we were not able to attend Mingenew Expo this year as a previous presentation of our Sale Team. On Farm pre sale-day review can be arranged. Call Anthony 0427 541 155 or Fred 0427 541 707.

Download the Sale team catalogue  HERE

Download a copy of our 2019 drop sire selection HERE

Download our AI and Semen sire list HERE

 

2019 Sale Team and Sire ASBV’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a late break we received excellent season opening rains which was back up with very good falls over next few weeks. This gave us a very good germination of feed and crops. However the rain did slow down and we have only received light falls since. Being such a late break and with the cold conditions the feed struggled to take off, while there is still enough green feed and we don’t have to hand feed, we are waiting for the spring flush to arrive.

We have been busy doing all our measurement on the rams and ewes over the last 12 months for the ASBV’s and after a small delay due to a technical hitch we have finally received our ASBV’s from Sheep Genetics. Ken has also been and classed the ram and our preliminary sale catalogue is now available. Our figure do really speak for themselves with lots of colour in our catalogue due to a lot of the rams falling into the top percentile bands in Australia giving us confidence that we are heading in the right direction in our breeding program to achieve constant improvement in developing a highly profitable multi purpose merino that can perform in any environment.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD 2019 SALE CATALOGUE

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD 2019 SIRE LIST

A full copy of the sheep genetics ASBV’s can be download HERE, but make sure you have plenty of paper.

 

Hill Padua Polls MPM Ram Sale, 23rd September 2019

Our ram sale date this year is on the 23rd of September, 2019 with 124 rams available at auction. The rams will be penned for inspection by 10.30  am with the sale due to start at 1.00 pm. lunch and drinks are available on the day and everyone is welcome, even if its just for a look.

2019 Mingenew Expo

Mingenew Expo is on the Wednesday the 14th and Thursday the 15th of August 2019. Due to a busy season on the farm we have decided not to exhibit sheep at the expo this year. However we will still be attending the expo and walking around to catch up with everyone. So keep an eye out for us all and say G’day.

2018 Ram ASBV’s

All our Data has been collected thought out the last 12 month and submitted to Sheep Genetics and we how have our 2018 ASBV’s back in time for LambEx in Perth on the 7th and 8th of August 2018.

Once again we will be attending Mingenew Expo for the two days on the 15th and 16th of August 2018 with a selection of Rams on display

Following this our Rams sale will be held on farm on the 17TH of September 2018 with 120 rams offered.

A copy of the SALE catalogue can be downloaded HERE,

A copy of the preliminary sire list available HERE

 

Training session

Monday 10th September 2018

Contact Adam if you would like to participate
0427541152

A one hour webinar session to help you navigate RamSelect.com.au and select the most appropriate rams for your flock

The Sheep CRC has developed a number of tools for commercial sheep producers that will drive genetic gain and productivity in your flock. We are delighted to partner with Hill Padua Polls to offer these tools to you in preparation for your next ram purchase.

Buying the right ram
Purchasing the right rams is paramount for achieving genetic gain and continued improvements in productivity. This is because of the high level of selection intensity that you can apply to your ram selections. Using ASBVs in combination with visual assessment for conformation and wool quality traits is the most efficient way to identify rams that will continue to improve your flock.

RamSelect
RamSelect.com.au is a web based program that allows you to;

  1.  Store information about your current rams and the team’s average ASBVs
  2.  Store your Flock Profile test results The information about your current rams and your flock can then be used to set ASBV criteria for future ram purchases.
  3. RamSelect also allows you to search and rank sale rams according to your needs and criteria. You can go to the sale or selection with the catalogue of rams ranked, to ensure you buy rams that will continue to make improvement in your flock.

What is Flock Profile Test?
The Flock Profile Test is a DNA based test. A blood or tissue sample from 20 randomly selected ewes from your youngest age group, is sent to the laboratory for analysis. The result provides you with flock average breeding values for all the important traits in a Merino enterprise. The cost is $700 plus GST. The test is particularly useful if you have been purchasing rams in the past without ASBVs and cannot determine the ram team average ASBVs.

The Sheep CRC are available to assist you to enter ram team data into RamSelect, interpreting Flock Profile test results and preparing for your next ram selection.

 

Please Contact Adam To participate

0427541152