WINTER 2005 EDITION 7
PRIME TIME FOR FINN
Finn for Maternal Genetics
The Maternal Central Progeny Test (MCPT) has highlighted the impact of maternal sires on the profitability of their F1 daughters as prime lamb mothers. Finn has proven to be a remarkable crossbred ewe for prime lamb production.
You can IMPROVE your Ewe Flock with Finn
Increased Lambing % is guaranteed
Survival of lambs born (weaned lambs)
Early sexual maturity – lambing at one year
Second cross lambs meeting carcase specifications – always 3’s & 4’s
Increased wool returns from the soft crossbred fleece
Buying Finn First Cross Ewes
You need to ensure that they are bred from a high performing Finn x flock. Most producers fall in love with their Finn cross ewes and are reluctant to part with them. Other producers have contracted to buy the Finn x ewe progeny prior to mating so it is not often that they are featured in sale yards.
Breeding ewes and replacements
Breeding your own first cross ewes allows for full control of the breeding program and health status, giving the extra bonus of joining the Finn x ewe lamb at 8 months or 35 kg live weight which eliminates the extra cost of growing out these ewes for that extra year.
A self replacing flock using the Finn genes when their daughters can be mated at an early age will reduce the costs of growing out replacements and the capacity for out of season joining will enhance your breeding and marketing options.
Take home Message for lamb producers
The MCTP is not yet complete but results to date confirm that maternal sires have a significant impact on the profitability of prime lamb production.
Based on average prices, returns differed by more than $50 per ewe per year from the value of second cross lamb carcase. Finn is topping the scores for lamb weight sold per ewe per year.
‘The best sire for producing high performing first cross ewes that provide optimum lifetime profit is unlikely to be the best sire for producing first cross slaughter wethers. For those breeding their own first cross ewe replacements, the choice of traits will be determined by a balance between the value of first cross wether lambs and the total lifetime value of the first cross ewes produced.”
For more information contact: www.mla.com.au
Try Finn ~ they will surprise you!
FAIRFIELD IN FINLAND
Finnsheep were introduced into Australia about 13 years ago, and like many such imports were over sold at first. Commercial farmers didn't want sheep that had 4 or 5 small lambs, some of which did not survive. Pure Finns are a lot of work! We are flock number 62, yet now there are only 7 registered Finn breeders in Australia.
We believe that the best use of Finn genetics is in first or second cross ewes. Ewes with Finn blood will have twins or triplets consistently and the highbred vigour of another breed will give them hardiness. Finns provide lean meat, as the sheep carry most their fat around their internal organs (as a guard against cold in Finland). Their wool is a soft lustrous white with an extremely low prickle factor, so it can be worn against the skin. One of our N.S. W breeders had his 25-micron wool tested and it had a comfort factor of98 %. To get this sort of comfort factor in merino wool you would need to have a very low micron.
Finns are docile sheep, with clean face and legs and no horns. They have a short tail (which we leave natural) and a naturally clean breach. We believe these qualities will be of use to the general wool industry when the practise of mule sing is no longer legal after 2008.
Last year in May, my husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to visit the motherland of Finnsheep, Finland. Their practices there are quite different to sheep farming in Australia. We visited their biggest mob of sheep at Pelso Prison, 500 kms north of Helsinki and they had about 700 sheep! They couldn't imagine farmers here having many, many thousands of sheep to look after. With winters getting down to 40 degrees below freezing, the sheep are shedded, and hand fed, for about 7 months of the year. They lamb in the sheds and the multiple lambs are topped up with supplementary milk or bottle fed as required. This is contrary to what we believed. Personally, we will only leave 3 lambs on a ewe to be naturally fed and either bottle feed or foster any others, but when we first got our Finns we were told they would raise 4 in the paddock. Some do, but as rule we have found 3 to be a good size litter for natural raising.
We visited a remarkable woman at Stenthope who designs clothing based on old Finnish Carbarla legends. She only has brown Finns (check out her website at www.stentorp.pamet.fi/). She explained the method of washing woollen underwear in winter. You put it outside overnight where it freezes, then you shake it until the snow and ice have gone, then bring it in, warm it up and put it back on again!
Except for one farm we visited, which only had white sheep, Finns are run in mobs of white, brown and black sheep all together. They place the same value on coloured wool as white, but they don't export much wool and they certainly couldn't guarantee white wool, like Australian wool.
We enjoy our Finnsheep very much and are glad that we stuck with it when many others gave up on the Finns. The wool is beautiful for handcrafts, spinning, knitting, felting and weaving. The sheep are extremely interesting, and although lambing is a hectic time, it is lovely when all those little lambs are romping around. We had only 20 pure bred Finns but out of our 48 ewes (that are either ½, ¾ or ⅞ Finn) there was only one ewe that had a single lamb last year.
We used New Zealand semen in an A.I programme last year and again this year but we hope to import some semen from Finland for next year. Some of our ewes also went to Queensland for an embryo-flushing programme with interesting results. This year we will lamb down 27 pure Finns and 70 ewes altogether.
We always attend Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show with our sheep and have lots of products for sale. We are usually not far inside the main gate on the left, in a tent. Do come and look us up where members of the Australian Finnsheep Breeders Association will be keen to speak to you
Maureen Shepherd ~ Fairfield Finns
FARMER FINANCES
An old country farmer with some money problems
bought a mule from another old farmer for $100, who agreed to deliver the mule the next day.
However, the next day he drove up and said,
Sorry, but I have some bad news: The mule died.
Well, then, just give me my money back.
Can't do that. I went and spent it already.
OK, then. Just unload the mule.
What ya gonna do with a dead mule?
I'm going to raffle him off.
You can't raffle off a dead mule!
Sure I can. I just won't tell anybody he's dead.
A month later the two met up and the farmer who sold the mule asked, Whatever happened with that dead mule? I raffled him off just like I said I would. I sold 500 tickets at $2 a piece and made a profit of $998.
Didn't anyone complain? Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.
IT’S A GIRL!
Congratulations to Tony & Melissa Chaston on the safe arrival of their little bundle of joy. Scarlet was born late June 2005, sister for Archer, all well but will sadly just Tony will be at the Sheep & Wool Show this year.
DROUGHT BREAKING RAINS
Farmers across the eastern states welcome late rains to get started with the cropping program and for pasture growth - there’s nothing like green grass to brighten the sole of all farmers
.
“We have just had almost 6 inches of glorious rain in the last few days of June. Was great, as we had only measured about 2 inches for the year up until then. However we will now have difficulty getting the cropping done as we did not plant dry and the paddocks are extremely wet, I even got my quad bike bogged yesterday.” Cheers from Graham at Eumungerie northern NSW where the drought has persisted for the last 3 years.
Graham & Jean Bushell of “Sonara Park” are about to publish their web site at:
www.finnsheep.com.au
So look out for this addition to the tools for promoting and marketing Finn which I know will be done with finness. Congratulations!
NWE ZEALAND TOUR
Travelling to NewZealand during March we took the opportunity to visit farms whose enterprise were using Finn to improve profitability. March is the time for introducing rams for spring lambing.
Our first call was to One–Stop-Ram-Shop to visit Robin Hilson on the North Island. Here they annually sell about 1500 composite rams to the prime lamb producers on both islands. We admired his 500 Suffolk ram lambs that seemed identical in the paddock and they were all sold! Finn & Finn crosses are highly sought by lamb producers. The Stabilized Finn -Texel is fast becoming a recognized breed bringing better fertility and muscling to durable easy-care sheep.
On the south Isle we were shown a terrific lambing enterprise where a Coopworth breeder had introduced the Finn to improve lambing percent. The ewe was a ⅜ Finn x ⅜ Texel x ¼ Coopworth with consistent 160% lambing from 4500 ewes run on 800 ac together with a few cattle. Shelter belts, lane ways, superb fencing and abundant pasture all the ideal situation for high production lamb enterprise.
Mt Pisa station of 28,000 ac was extending up to the rugged hill country of Mt Pisa Ranges. The main enterprise was superfine merinos where that owner found it profitable to establish their own marketing label for their 14-micron wool. Finn Texel Cross ewes was the basis of a prime lamb enterprise to increase profits. This station was in the Wanaka Valley famous for the pinot noir and had recently taken advantage of a sale of some prime creek flats with water entitlement to the grape industry for $25,000 per ac. We identified Paterson’s curse here but the locals’ call it blue borage! – In fact in NZ they grow crops of blue borage for the delicious honey.
High stocking rates with high fertilizer applications for optimum production.
Down in Southland we visited the McDonalds. They run 6500 ⅜ Finn ⅜ Texel ¼ Romney sheep on 1300 ac with an annual turn off of 10,000 lambs, also 200 cows. These are a tough very productive stabilized composite producing lean carcase with exceptional growth rates. Last season scheduled lamb price $65 plus $3 @ skin. Lambs go to slaughter averaging 17.2 kg at 12 – 18 weeks of age. All works ram lambs are left entire and late matures are run separately. Replacement ewe lambs are selected and joined at 7 months or 35 / 40 kg. This June pre lambing scanning results are 180 – 190%.
Harvesting grass is the theory to this highly productive enterprise. Store it away in the summer as haylage to have adequate feed for the harsh winter. Colin was a bit concerned that there was too much grass – to him this indicated that maybe the stocking rate should be greater.
Bruce & Jean McClymont ~ LODDON RISE FINNS
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