Good At Finishing? You Need To Be Great!

November, 2024

Beef and wool are better at turning poor-quality feed into product. Cows are great at utilizing poor-quality feed, and Merino sheep don’t require high-quality feed to produce a fine fleece. However, in lamb, you not only need high feed utilization, you also need to convert feed into kilograms of lamb. This hinges on maximizing feed quality, which is determined by pasture composition and subsequent management.

Success in lamb is based on growth rate, which is a subset of feed quality. Given the importance of stocking rate, achieving growth rate can be difficult during lactation due to feed limitations and worm burdens. Mentally, producers need to split breeding and finishing. Breeding focuses on delivering as many lambs per hectare to a finishing system, and using available feed resources to maximize weaning weight.

Finishing is about growth rate. The difference between 175 grams a day and 350 grams a day changes a typical lamb’s turn-off time post-weaning from 60 days (two months) to 120 days (four months). That extra two months adds labour and husbandry costs, which heavily contributes to the cost of production. Another important consideration is that high-growth lambs—whether on grain or grass—have a lower feed conversion ratio, meaning less feed is required to put on a kilogram of live weight.

One of the problems is that there is no set recipe in grass finishing systems. What pasture is best varies with every postcode and environment. We use lucerne, chicory, and clover, but the downside is that if these aren’t managed precisely, they can struggle to persist, making them a high-cost option. You unfortunately can’t just be good at managing finishing pastures; you need to be great. Species selection, weed control, and grazing management must be precise. Those who use these systems effectively run highly profitable lamb operations driven by growth rate. Those who don’t manage them correctly produce slow-growing lambs, making it a high-cost option.

The single biggest opportunity for clients is to become better finishers. You can’t be simply good; you need to be freakishly great.

LAMBPRO Ram Raid: Sires To Target Lucrative USA Market

October, 2024

LAMBPRO completes unprecedented buying spree, securing three of Australia’s top seven Poll Dorset rams for Eating Quality (EQ) Index.

LAMBPRO has made a significant investment in premium genetics over the past three weeks, purchasing three of the top seven Poll Dorset rams in Australia for Eating Quality (EQ) Index. The acquisitions include Valma 230027 for $25,200, Gooramma 230135 for $23,000, and Felix 230054 for $4,500. This remarkable move strengthens LAMBPRO’s position as a leading global player in lamb genetics, targeting both domestic and international markets.

LAMBPRO principal Tom Bull shared his enthusiasm about the purchases, noting the potential for these rams to meet growing demand abroad:

“We see a significant opportunity in the USA for highly marbled lamb with superior eye muscle. Additionally, the domestic market is beginning to show strong interest in marbling.”

These rams will join LAMBPRO’s existing homebred sires to form a top-tier group of breeding animals, specifically developed to improve product quality for clients and partners.

“Our clients now send thousands of lambs each week to lucrative USA markets,” Bull explained.

“Genetics is about improving product quality, and these markets demand marbling along with deep, large eye muscles. All our breeding efforts focus on producing genetics that meet the demands of end consumers.”

As LAMBPRO continues to innovate in premium lamb production, this latest round of ram purchases underscores the company’s commitment to delivering market-specific genetics. By doing so, LAMBPRO ensures that its clients remain competitive in an evolving global marketplace.

Marbling

Could marbling be one of the biggest opportunities to reduce cost of production in lamb?

One of the biggest differences between beef and lamb systems is the low percentage of beef producers who finish cattle to a slaughter market compared to lamb. Beef relies mostly on vertical integrated grain finishing businesses, who utilise feedlots to improve the quality and the consistency of the beef, and more importantly control supply for the processing plants. This has created a very segmented integrated model, with breeders, backgrounders, finishers, and processors. While a number of beef producers undertake multiple steps in this process (breeding, backgrounding etc.), there is a growing number of beef producers who solely focus on breeding. This is resulting in beef production becoming simpler, and consequently the emergence of larger scale, labour efficient businesses, which are capable of running 1000 cows per labour unit.

Contradictory to beef, most lamb producers attempt to breed and finish their lambs to slaughter. We have always maintained, lamb producers operating a breeding and finishing enterprise in effect need to run two separate enterprises. We see it’s the finishing component where competency is often lacking and systems become more costly and less labour efficient. Plenty of producers do a great job at breeding with the right stocking rate, lambing percentage and growth rate to weaning, however many struggle with the finishing component. Poor growth rates are a significant issue for grass finishers, driven by feed quality and in some cases worm burdens on pastures. These growth rates cause lambs to stay on farm for prolonged periods, typically over Summer & Autumn when feed supply is low, creating increased cost & labour. These lambs also compete with breeding ewes for feed. Likewise, poor growth rates when grain finishing results in poor feed conversions, adding significant cost per kilogram of lamb produced.

The move to becoming a specialist store lamb producer on the surface is a simplistic low-cost system, however the pattern of turn off sees millions of lambs hitting the market over a confined period (November/December) and pricing can be significantly less on a cents per kg, than finished lambs. It is important to remember beef is split into autumn and spring (late winter) calving and finishers/backgrounders have more consistent supply of weaners. Additionally, beef has the luxury of being produced in varied rainfall climates (summer and winter effective rainfalls) from Southern VIC to Central QLD, who have different grass patterns for finishing and backgrounding. The other issue pertinent to lamb, compared to beef, is lambs use of teeth which creates a significantly less time frame for marketing.

Grain finishing the right genetics has a significant impact on marbling and meat quality, yet grain finished lamb isn’t differentiated in the marketplace, creating little incentive for a specialist finishing sector. For lamb to enjoy the same benefits of a specialist finishing sector two things must occur. Firstly, we need genetics that convert grain to a highly marbled product. The increase in carcase value makes a specialist finishing sector work. Heavier lambs, receiving higher returns on a cents per kilogram basis, will drive investment into finishing. It will also see backgrounding used to spread the supply of feeder lambs into feedlots. The second impact will be the value of store lambs. Producers who produce a lamb who has the propensity to produce a marbled product should see increased values in feeder lambs, similar as beef has seen with Wagyu and to a lesser degree Angus feeder cattle.

A dedicated lamb finishing sector will make lamb simpler, and more labour efficient. The production of domestic slaughter lambs will always be the backbone of the industry, however the size of the market is limited, and we need an industry that creates a scalable, lower cost production system for lamb producers to become profitable. LAMBPRO’s investment into highly marbled grain markets, combined with a specialised mechanism to transact feeder lambs using the Benchmark Feeder Lamb Sales, aims to make lamb simpler and create more value. Marbling is the key ingredient to make this model work.

Labour Efficient Sheep Systems

September, 2023

The average sheep producer is around 64 years old and often struggles to find enough help on the farm.

When we look at the facts on declining sheep numbers, it highlights why many producers are rethinking their operations. For some, sheep are too labour-intensive, and the current lack of strong economic returns may drive them to switch enterprises. The lure of simpler operations, such as beef, is real – especially in regions like New England, where many producers have shifted away from sheep over the past two decades.

However, lamb still has more potential than other major proteins (beef, pork, and chicken) because it faces less competition, but the manner in which we produce them needs to change.

Wool needs to go on a large percentage of Australia’s sheep.

Wool is now a significant cost for sheep producers. The number of available shearers is unlikely to increase, sheep are getting bigger and stronger, and there is no sign that shearing costs will go down.

However, the cost of wool is not just about shearing. Crutching, dagging, and blowfly prevention also take a lot of time each year. We rarely discuss the production losses linked to shearing and other wool-based tasks.

Moving to shedding sheep is appealing, but it requires substantial investment to match the production (growth, fertility) of the Primeline Maternal flock and to reach similar ease of management for drenching and foot health. In our experience, the best shedding sheep still lag behind Primeline Maternal sheep, though we are seeing promising outliers in all traits.

With focused selection pressure and new technologies – such as sexed semen, embryo transfer, and genomics – performance will improve rapidly. We estimate that by 2027, half of our maternal rams will be shedding. Over time, a shedding flock will likely lower production costs significantly.

Many husbandry costs can be removed in seedstock.

‘Training should be so hard the game should be easy’ – from my former rugby days.

The process of testing and selecting seedstock must be relevant to commercial operations, with a focus on reducing labor and costs in lamb production. Unfortunately, much of the past century’s selection happened in “perfect” environments (like show sheds), which did not reflect the real-world conditions faced by most producers.

From the beginning, we aimed to produce seedstock under commercial conditions, at higher stocking rates than many of our clients. Over time, we have experimented with ways to reduce costs by adjusting husbandry processes. Since 2003, we have only summer-drenched mature maternal ewes once (for barber’s pole). In 2023, we decided not to drench any mature ewes at all unless their worm egg count exceeds 1000 during late pregnancy. We recognize this may lower production on average and that some ewes will fall behind, but many others in the same group will maintain strong weaning weights, even with high worm counts. By collecting data in these challenging conditions, we can identify and reward high-performing, low-cost sheep.

A major priority is maintaining single contemporary groups wherever possible. In many stud programs, ewes in poor condition are often given extra feed, leading to artificially high performance results and more expensive sheep. Similarly, simply culling ewes with poor foot structure or lameness helps reduce production losses linked to foot problems.

Ultimately, the seedstock sector needs a rapid shift in thinking because producers bear the cost of inefficient or non-commercial breeding practices. Selecting sheep that thrive in low-cost environments benefits commercial flocks and will be a key factor in driving down the cost of production industry-wide.

2023 Primeline Maternal Ewe Sale

On the 21st November, over 10,000 Primeline Ewes & Ewe Lambs will be on offer via AuctionsPlus.

The ewes are specialist prime lamb genetics, bred by science using the national performance recording system, LAMBPLAN.

The Primeline Maternal is the leading maternal breeding program in Australia, and these genetics are now prominent in many leading lamb flocks in Australia.

The sheep are bred to lower cost of production by being able to perform at high stocking rates,
with minimal inputs, and turn off high quality lambs in a short amount of time.

The breeding program aims to be able to produce high muscled trade lambs with adequate fat cover, that can be taken to heavy export weights and have high levels of intramuscular fat. The Primeline Maternal breed is the backbone of leading USA lamb brand ‘Willow Bend’. This high marbling brand is a joint venture between LAMBPRO clients and Catelli Brothers based in Philadelphia USA.

With a focus on premium lamb production, the LAMBPRO Index combines both production traits
and carcase traits, with a particularly heavy focus on marbling.

Prospective purchases are able to see the vendors three year rolling average of their sire team for the LAMBPRO index, and IMF (marbling). This is a new initiative, but we believe it adds transparency in the selling of elite breeding ewes.

The producers represent some of Australia’s best lamb producers, and this sale offers a unique opportunity to purchase from the heart of their flocks.

To view the 2023 catalogue, click here

Supplier Awards 2023

WILLOW BEND/ KINROSS STATION AWARDS 

Presented by Catelli Brothers USA and Endeavor Meats

It gives us great pleasure to announce the inaugural Willow Bend/Kinross Station awards for 2023. The awards will be presented on November 2^nd at the LAMBPRO Sale dinner. The awards recognise clients who have excelled at producing the highest marbled lamb for the Endeavour programs.

The two awards & finalists are as follows:  

Consignment of the Year

• David and Michelle Farley, Farley Partners, Kybybolite SA 
• Pete MacSmith & Matt Bowden, Macbor, Cudal NSW
• Scott and Daniel Howell, Howell Pastoral Company, Amphitheatre VIC 
• Peter Allen & Simon Wood, Allen Rural, Woodstock NSW 
• Darren Schurmann, Kingaroy Partnership, Hamilton VIC 

Supplier of the Year

• Tom Kininmonth, Kininmonth Pastoral, Winchelsea VIC 
• Richard Knight, Baldry and Son, Wallendbeen NSW  
• Darren Schurmann, Kingaroy Partnership, Hamilton VIC 
• Peter MacSmith & Matt Bowden, Macbor, Cudal NSW 
• Scott and Daniel Howell, Howell Pastoral Company, Amphitheatre VIC 

We believe it’s important to reward excellence, but more importantly irrespective of what market you supply, we need to push the limits on quality and these awards encourage all clients to aspire for quality.  

Congratulations to the finalists.  

Commodity isn’t the place to be

“All lamb is good”

Over the past decades, the one quote I have heard from many of the processors and retailers is ‘all lamb is good’. This generalisation is single handedly one of the biggest downfalls of the industry, and partly to blame for an indicator that’s operating around cost of production ($5.50kg) at this current time.

Consumer research conducted by MLA and the Sheep CRC shows all lamb isn’t good, driven by two key attributes:

1. Marbling (Juiciness & Tenderness)
2. Flavour

The sheep CRC provided some exceptional data on the impact of marbling on overall consumer experience which highlighted a significant variation in lamb in Australia. More importantly a significant proportion of the global markets will comment, Australian lamb has a strong ‘gamey’ flavour. The world is split into two camps, those who are ‘lamb eaters’ i.e. don’t mind the strong flavour, and those that are the lamb non-eaters, finding its flavour too strong.

The opportunity for lamb is to establish brands based on quality and a subtle mild flavour, establishing a point of difference to insulate producers from the commodity price race.

When I was in China recently, a large meat importer made the comment:

“We buy Australian product on price, as there is little point of difference between the major brands”

The issue with having a large percentage of lamb that is considered the same, is the basis for competition is based on price, and that concept is what has been partly responsible for the current pricing. When demand slows, inventories build, and price wars ensue, which drives new price levels in lamb.

We firmly believe the future for our clients is in the premium segment, and our work continues to help position clients in this market. Genetics is the enabler to produce premium lamb. However finishing systems within our client base need to be improved to ensure consistency.

Raising The Bar On Quality

Written and originally published by the Australian Good Meat team. To see more of the great work the team are doing, head to www.goodmeat.com.au

Whilst we all enjoy the wonderful produce that comes from Australian farms to our tables every day, not all of us have had the chance to connect with the land and the people who care for it, whilst feeding the world.

Yes… you read right… marbled lamb…

“We’re sheep nerds really!”

A love of animals and the sheep in their care makes every day a good day for Sophie and the team at Kinross Station. They treat the sheep with respect and care, ensuring they set them up to thrive. Happy, healthy mum’s and happy, healthy lambs.  

“Landcare is always front of mind. We want to build an ecosystem and a property that future generations can come through and enjoy”

It is really clear how important care of the land and care of the animals is to everyone at Kinross Station. From the owners Tom and Phoebe Bull to Sophie and the passionate team of young professionals – everyone shows a love and respect for the land that they are working and living in.     

They want to build a really healthy, vibrant and balanced ecosystem, that allows them to farm ethically and sustainably now and into the future.

For Sophie, working at Kinross also comes with it’s own rewards. “I love working here and with the team, everybody’s so passionate and they just want to get in and get involved, The future of the industry is so exciting. There’s so much potential and so many opportunities.”

The Hampshire Down is a rare breed bringing marbling to the table for lamb

We’ve all heard about marbled beef, right? But marbled lamb…not so much.

But that is where the Kinross Station Hampshire Down breed of sheep come into their own. 

Originally from Hampshire in Southern England, the Hampshire Downs (or Hampies) dwindled in the 1980’s as the black wool on their faces was a black fibre risk in a sheep industry focused on producing premium white wool. And so, the breed slipped into rare breed status in Australia.

But the clever Kinross team saw the premium quality potential at of the breed and identified a few flocks with a marbling strain unparalleled in the world sheep flock.

For Chophouse Sydney’s Head Chef Scott Kim, the humble lamb chop was transformed when he first discovered the marbled lamb from Kinross. It was the first lamb chop that he had seen with a marble score 4, which was very interesting and is now a staple on the Chophouse menu.

“That’s where all of the tenderness comes alive. People just love it. Love it. They love it.”

Scott Kim, Head Chef Chophouse Sydney

To read the original article : https://www.goodmeat.com.au/blog/Raising-the-bar-on-quality/

We are hiring: Multiple Livestock & Supply Chain Assistants

Multiple Livestock/Supply Chain Positions Available

LAMBPRO is a leading sheep seedstock business based at Holbrook NSW. The business is one of Australia’s largest seedstock businesses, with over 11,000 fully recorded seedstock ewes lambing down in 2023. The business has a long record of innovation in the sheep genetics and meat industry. LAMBPRO also operates a lamb export business, exporting clients lamb to several countries.

We are searching for friendly, passionate young people, who want a career in the sheep and/or meat industry. You will start with the sheep and genetics part of the business with supply chain activities for the first year, with the opportunity to branch out into specific areas of the LAMBPRO business. LAMBPRO, a rapidly growing business, offers opportunities for young people wanting to progress into farm operations, genetics, or meat and supply chain roles.

We have accommodation on farm, with the property located less than 10 minutes from Holbrook and 45 minutes from Wagga and Albury. Remuneration will be based on education and experience. These jobs will be applicable to applicants who are graduates, school leavers, or young people currently working in the industry.

Please send resumes to Tom Bull [email protected]

Volatile Markets: The Norm in Food Production

VUCA

Volatile Uncertain Chaotic Ambiguous

When VISY Chairman Anthony Pratt addressed the Global Food Forum in Melbourne in May (2022) he had a very simple theme for anyone in the global food supply chain, be prepared for a ‘V.U.C.A’ world.

The past six months have highlighted the reality of a VUCA world. The invasion of the Ukraine by Russia has seen the geopolitical influence on world food prices become a reality, heat waves in the Northern Hemisphere, chronic labour shortage in food processing, and the threat of Foot and Mouth Disease. All these factors are currently impacting Australian producers at present.

This volatility will always be ongoing and has been a constant over the past few decades. From volatility comes opportunity and we need to be agile to position ourselves in a fast moving world.

Why Low Cost of Production is KEY to a VUCA World…