A fascinating series of tests is about to start at the Agricultural Research and Advisory Station at Glen Innes.
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It’s just taken delivery of 205 cross-bred ewes and the plan is to graze them on the same paddocks but then to divide them into groups and test different treatments on each group to see what works, particularly in terms of combating worm and raising weight.
Staff from the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) and the Northern Tablelands Local Land Services will work together to, as they put it, “look at solutions to some of the real problems faced by sheep graziers on the Northern Tablelands.”
One of the tests, for example, will be using rams with different track records of breeding to see whether the resulting progeny is more or less resistant to worm or even unaffected by the quality of the ram.
The aim is to find solutions to problems which work and which may be cheaper and better than current practice.
“We are going to use this flock to trial different management options and show the benefits using performance data with treated and untreated animals in the same flock,” said Brent McLeod, the Sheep Officer at the Glen Innes field station.
“We are now sourcing rams with the right genetic make-up to allow us to compare performance data and resistance/ resilience to worms by selecting some rams with national averages and others from the top one per cent in the country”, he said.
The sheep will be run as a commercial operation to try to get results which will puts dollars and cents into producers’ pockets. It’s not an academic exercise but a practical one.
“A major important local issue we will be looking at is effective worm control,” said Brent McLeod. “We know we have some really severe issues in this part of the world so we will be looking at drench resistance, nutrition and resilience to worms, breeding for worm resistance plus the benefits of supplementing selenium, copper and other minerals.”
Silenium is a vital mineral which sheep (and humans) need. The intake for sheep depends on the state of the pasture so the district vet, Nigel Brown, said that the effect of different pasture would be studied.
To make sure the tests could start on the right basis, when the ewes arrived, they were inspected, drenched and vaccinated.
Some blood was collected from half a dozen animals to monitor their selenium status. They were put into a quarantine paddock for weed seeds to be flushed out.
“No lice, lameness nor leg or feet problems; they were a really good”, said Dr Brown.
Having ascertained the healthy condition of the flock, the sheep will now be tested and monitored in a rigorous way to get results which stand up in commercial, real conditions.
The results and advice would be shared with graziers in what the two researchers hope witl be an ongoing dialogue to improve productivity and profits.