Welcome to the 2021 Fernvale update.
Fernvale Genetics are excited to launch our new website, you can check us out at www.fernvale.co.nz
The 2021 Ram Order Form is attached to this newsletter (for the mail out) – however, if you would prefer you could jump onto our order form page on the new website to either print the form or have the option to complete and submit it online.
As a stud farming enterprise we have always looked at using every piece of technology available by testing all modern systems out and evaluating what is not only good for our operation but also for the industry. A good example of this is using Genomics to ascertain percentage and breeding values.
While this is very expensive to use within a farming organization it comes with so many benefits that make it in our view invaluable in ensuring we are heading into the future and leading the way to guarantee we have a robust and productive farming operation.
Electronic identification has evolved over the past decade to a point now where is it becoming common place to have the ability to track and trace livestock with microchips. This helps with having a 100% accurate breeding platform, especially when paired with DNA sampling.
In the past we have mentioned our large commercial operation on the Whitecomb run consisting of 7,000 Romney ewes, this has always been our test patch when testing our genetics to ultimately see how they perform in a true hard commercial environment. The goal we set 15 years ago was to get to 140 % ewes to the ram, this last season we made it!
While I do understand that 140% lambing in certain locations and systems may not be considered that sufficient but in this harsh class of country would place the flock at the upper end of the industry. The trend we have seen in this has been a gradual increase with slight deviations due to climate events. It is also important to note that when we first entered that property over 25 years ago a successful lambing out there was only 85%.
In last year’s newsletter we made a comment that there were talks between Wools of NZ and Primary Wool over a potential amalgamation with these two companies – one year on this has now become a reality with only a shareholder vote needed to finalize the merger which is one major step to getting the industry back on track. The strong wool action group that was tasked with lifting the sector out of the doldrums appears to finally be making some head way doing things like focusing on consumer awareness, branded products and forming partnerships with processors. With lamb being in such a strong position imagine what $10 per kg would look like on our balance sheets.
We hope this finds you well, enclosed is a self-addressed envelope and ram order form. Ram sales are scheduled to take place in the first week of December, we look forward to seeing you then.
