News | Illoura White Suffolks

Life Time Ewe Management

We were involved with the LTEM program in 2016 and found it very interesting and rewarding. One of the key profit drivers to increasing the gross margin for any sheep enterprise is to increase lambing and weaning percentages. To improve the weaning percentage it is important to monitor and regulate the condition of the ewe flock throughout the year, particularly pre-mating, during pregnancy and post lambing.

Did you know:

Nutritional restrictions to a lamb during pregnancy will never be compensated for - you are breeding guaranteed poor performers.
If a ewe wanders more than 10m from the new born lamb within 6hrs of giving birth, there is a 40% increased mortality for these lambs.

Genomic developments in sheep breeding

Genomic developments

Illoura has supported the Sheep CRC with the research on genomic evaluation and SNP chip technology. This technology uses DNA samples to measure a range of traits and Illoura uses this DNA test for the top sires within the stud. This DNA testing will improve the accuracy of the ASBV’s for sheep provided at our sale.

It also provides useful information about the hard to measure traits like worm resistance and the meat characteristics that determine the meat eating quality. It allows selection of genetically superior rams, earlier in their life with much more confidence.

For example:

Sheep meat eating quality

The DNA testing provides information about hard to measure traits like Lean Meat Yield (LMY) & Dressing Percentage (DRESSPE) which are important information for the processor. It also provides information about Intramuscular Fat (IMF) and Shear Force at 5 days (SHEAR5) which is an important measure of the tenderness and eating quality of the lamb. Interestingly, increasing Lean Meat Yield generally has a negative effect on meat tenderness and flavour. The challenge is to increase LMY and not jeopardise the fantastic quality of the meat, so LMY and eating quality need to be managed together.

Although we don’t expect financial gain for our clients in the near future by being involved with this DNA research, it is important that we continue to participate to ensure that lamb consumers continue to have a great eating experience. This will benefit the whole industry and help ensure the future of the lamb industry. Did you know, it takes 4 times as much feed for a lamb to produce 1 kg of fat compared with producing 1 kg of meat. Therefore, it is inefficient to try increasing IMF by simply increasing subcutaneous fat.

Objective Carcass Measurement and Livestock Data Link

I have been talking about the development of this technology for a few years now, and it is very pleasing that MLA and processors have bitten the bullet and are going down this path. This technology will mean that producers will get much more information about the yield and eating quality of the sheep and lambs that are being processed.

This will assist producers to provide a consistent quality product which will ultimately ensure a consistently good eating experience for consumers.

At Illoura we continue to DNA test our young sires to ensure that eating quality is maintained, which will position or clients well when producers are rewarded for good yield and good eating quality.

Illoura 2017 Flock Ram Catalogue now online

We have uploaded the 2017 Illoura Flock Ram Sale Catalogue to our website this morning as promised.

It has been provided in both PDF format for easy printing as well as Excel format so you can do some sorting and selections on the qualities you are looking for in your terminal sires for the coming years.

We have also included the 2017 Terminal Sire Percentile Report so you can compare our sale rams with industry standards

Key points

Illoura continues to be an industry leader for growth rates with every ram in the sale catalogue exceeding the industry average PWWT of 12.5 for terminal sires, and nearly 50% of these animals in the top 10% with a PWWT over 15.7. Growth rate of lambs is one of the key profit driver for all prime lamb enterprises.

We have again included the new index LEQ (Lamb Eating Quality) which combines the Lamb 20/20 index with eating quality traits as determined by DNA testing. Over 95% of the Illoura sale catalogue exceeds the industry average of 126.8. Keeping an eye on eating quality is important for the future of our industry, and eventually producers will be rewarded for producing lambs that fit the MSA (Meat Standards Australia) criteria.

While objective figures give an important insight to the genetic value of rams, the Illoura focus will continue to be on conformation and functionality. This year’s sale rams are structurally correct, well grown with plenty of length and frame, and are ready to work. The rams have easily reached our target with an average body weight of 100kg and condition score 4. It is important to get this balance right, while rams need to be strong and functional, excessively fat rams are less likely to live a long and productive life.

Please note – we no longer have the Poll Dorset stud and have included an extra 40 White Suffolk rams in his years sale to ensure we have a very good selection for all attendees.

With 300 White Suffolk rams on offer we are confident that there will be rams to suit all buyers and budgets.

Illoura Innovation & Technology

The Illoura flock continues to grow and this year we mated 1350 stud ewes and tagged nearly 2000 lambs from these ewes.

All lambs are weighed at birth, at weaning and early post weaning along with post weaning fat and muscle measurements. Detailed pedigree details are recorded and we can provide a pedigree going back over 30 years for sheep born and bred on the property. This record keeping is essential to identify bloodlines that are performing well and those that are not.

To keep on top of flock management procedures and maintain the necessary standards in a large stud, we have invested heavily in new technology:

good fencing, yards and infrastructure to ensure efficient sheep management
labour saving sheep handling equipment
electronic tags to quickly and accurately collect information
auto weighing and auto drafting

Auto-Drafter

In 2016 we adapted our auto drafter for our pregnancy testing. This means we can automatically read the ewes tag number, record weight, condition score, pregnancy status and draft accordingly. The drafting can be done automatically as required eg all multiple bearing ewes drafted off, or, only multiple bearing ewes that have a condition score of less than 3.

This micro management at the individual sheep level means we can improve lamb survivability. However, it also means that we need to keep a lot more records.

The premise of Lambplan is that every lamb born in a management group has had an equal opportunity to express their genetic potential. If we preferentially feed ewes to increase the number of lambs weaned, this information needs to be recorded in the Lambplan database to give us accurate ASBVs for birth weight, growth rate etc.

Australian Research Breeding Values (ASBV's)

Illoura is a foundation member of Lambplan (initially with the SA Sheep Meat Testing Service) and it is a valuable tool to assist with stud selection by providing breeding values for a range of economically important traits. However, the first cull will always be based on conformation and structure to ensure the sheep live a long and productive life.

These Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBV’s) compensate for external influences like birth type, age of the dam and age at testing. The figures are then used within the stud to select the best animals as breeding stock to provide optimal birth weight, growth rates, fat coverage and muscling. The ultimate aim is to produce animals that will meet market requirements in the most efficient manner.Illoura has been performance recording their stock since the early 1980’s and is foundation members of the national Lambplan performance recording scheme.

In more recent years, Illoura has been involved with the Sheep CRC Genomic Program where DNA samples from our elite sires are submitted for analysis.

This will increase the accuracy of the growth, fat and muscle figures that we have been providing for many years, This cutting edge technology also gives us information on the hard to measure traits like dressing percentage and lean meat yield (important for processors), intramuscular fat and meat shear force (essential for a pleasant eating experience) and worm resistance.

Electronic Tags

The use of EID has dramatically increased the efficiency and improve the accuracy of our sheep recording system. All lambs are tagged at birth with a full pedigree recorded along with birth weight, birth type, rearing type and lambing ease (even dead lambs are tagged so that a ewe's breeding history is accurately recorded). The tags will remain with the sheep for the life of the animal and utilised to record numerous performance records that are entered into the national Lambplan database to provide an accurate picture of the potential genetic performance of each animal.

Electronic tagging at Illoura during lambing time

Lambex

Lambex is Australia's largest lamb-focused event. The two-day conference is held once every two years and covers topics such as market opportunities, science and new technology.

Perth, Western Australia, has been chosen to host the next Lambex on 5-7 August 2018.

Learn More

Lambex 2014

It was very pleasing to be involved with the LambEx organising committee that prepared a national sheep conference held at the Wayville Showgrounds in July 2014.

See the highlights in this short video!

Allan and Ian Meet Poh

Poh Ling Yeow (of Masterchef and Poh's Kitchen fame) came to take a look at the White Suffolk sheep at the 2010 Royal Adelaide Show. She talked to Allan and Ian Pfeiffer (Burwood stud) about what is involved in breeding lamb that is tender and tasty and took a look at our sheep while she was there.

This episode aired on Nov 10th where she and chef Emmanuel Mollois showed us how to cook Lamb Shoulder Confit with Spices.

Check out Poh's other delicious Lamb Recipes on the Poh's Kitchen website.