SEEING his paddocks become dustbowls by the end of every summer, Kangaroo Island prime lamb producer Peter Lovering decided there had to be a better way to make a profit but also look after soils and pastures.
With wife Katrina, Peter runs 4500 ewes - including 1000 Merino and 3500 crossbreds, mainly Border Leicester-Merino-Coopworth composites - on 1275 hectares at Haines on KI.
The area is known for its light, sandy country with a distinct growing season from mid-May to November.
The average annual rainfall of 500 millimetres is reliable.
After attending Grazing for Profit seminars in 2003, Peter found his country was being "flogged" because he was trying to run too much livestock for the rainfall he received.
"We needed to better match our feed to our carrying capacity without sacrificing profit," he said. "So our first aim was to become a total breeding flock in order to have fewer head on the ground through summer."
It was decided the Merino ewes would be phased out to make room for more fertile ewes, such as Greelines (Texel, East Friesian, Coopworth-cross) and Tefroms (Texel, East Friesian, Romney-cross).
Peter said the move would mean less ewes but more lambs as both breeds have the genetics to achieve weaning rates of up to 180 per cent.
"We needed to maximise our production through the winter when we had feed, get as many lambs on the ground and out to finishers as quickly as possible out of as fewer ewes as possible, so that come
summer we had the numbers right to take through the autumn," he said.
"We wanted to be back-to-core breeders by mid-December."
Greelines and Tefroms are also considered low maintenance because they have the genetics to handle worms and are less susceptible to flystrike.
"Being a medium-framed sheep, they are also known to have very good feed conversion rates, fast growth and high yielding carcases," Peter said.
He says they aim to be specialist feeder lamb producers.
"We were using Coopworth genetics for their high lambing percentages, however their carcase traits were lacking," he said.
"So I am trying for a composite ewe with better meat traits, like the Texel, while the East Friesian genetics produce more milk for the lamb."
This year, Peter's crossbred ewes had 150pc lambing, after 8pc drys were scanned out - up from 135pc the previous year. He attributes some of the increase to better seasonal conditions. The Merinos had a 115pc lambing percentage.
Source: farmonline.com.au
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