Quality wool for heavyweight lamb trade

Press, 11 October 1985, Page 23

Quality wool for heavyweight lamb trade

The ability of Borderdales to produce good weights of quality lambs’ wool makes them highly suitable for the heavyweight lamb trade, says Mr Stuart Wright, a farmer of Dunsandel. The wool provided a very good bonus on top of the premium gold for heavyweight carcases, said Mr Wright who last year produced heavyweight (WX) lambs, for Waitaki NX Refrigerating, Ltd. With a selective breeding policy, it should be possible to produce lean, heavyweight lambs which will not put on excess fat Steps involved in Mr Wright’s heavyweight lamb production last season were: • 600 September-born Borderdale ram lambs were shorn in mid-January and clipped 1.52 kg per head. The net return was $5.83 per head.

• After shearing, 102 lambs above 38kg were selected for length and leanness and grazed on rye-grass-white clover pasture and rape. At the end of March their average

liveweight was 51.4 kg. © The mob was grazed on the same paddocks until the end of April, when 20 lambs were drafted to the works. The remainder, in spite of short rations, were considered to be too fat

© The 20 lambs slaughtered had an average liveweight of 48.3 kg, an average carcase weight of 21.4 kg, an average G.R. measurement of B.4mm, and an average carcase to liveweight yield of 44.4 per cent One carcase was graded TH and two were PX. The net return per head was $40.99, and included a pelt payment of $5.84 and a WX premium of 40c a kg. Coupled with the lambs’ wool return of $5.83, the over-all net return was $46.85 each.

• The remaining 82 lambs were shorn, clipping I.6kg of wool per head, which returned $6.40 net per head 16 weeks after the first shearing. ® The lambs were slaughtered four weeks later, 40 being graded PX with an average weight of

182 kg, worth $33.14 net, including a pelt value of $319 and a WX premium of 30c a kg. Together with $1213 per head for the wool from two shearings, the total net return was $45.37.

© The remaining 42 lambs killed at 201 kg, returning $38.55, including a WX premium of 40c a kg and a pelt value of $319. The total net return for this mob, including wool, was $50.78. The average GJL measurement for the 82 lambs was 82mm.

Mr Wright said these excellent results were achieved with little selection or emphasis on breeding for WX lambs. Future plans involve breeding a percentage of lambs, especially for the heavyweight trade, and three ram hoggets with a high lean growth index will be mated with selected long, lean type ewes.

These ram hoggets had an autumn GJL of 6, 6 and Bmm and in August had reached ' an average liveweight of 64.5 kg with no apparent increase in GH.