news2006

Welcome to the news page for

PENDARRA WHITE SUFFOLK STUD and PERFORMANCE plus GENETICS.

We will frequently use this page as a notice board to let you know what is happening within our stud and allow new visitors to our site to see some of the highlights over the past few years.

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2007 2008

Highlights 2006

An exciting year Ahead

Joining is complete and this year we have joined over 650 stud ewes to some very interesting sires. With a very busy program, we have made the decision not to show prepare sheep this year, instead concentrating on some ground breaking research and initiatives within our stud.

They're Growing!

The lambs sired by the UK sire, Meikelson U20/98 are continuing to impress with very good growth and muscling. Despite a very tough season, these lambs look very fresh and are exhibiting plenty of muscle with growth rates equal to the top White Suffolk lambs. As these lambs are in a group that includes some of the top performing White Suffolk sires, some very good data will be obtained once weights and scanning details are analysed in the Lambplan database. These lambs are very thick and deep in the carcase, and very correct and have had no supplementary feeding,.... Yet!!. I'll bet old Meikelson U20/98 never thought his lambs would be growing out on country that has had less than 5" rainfall for the year.

All "Peas in a Pod" 4511/06 from Leahcim 85/98 daughter

4503/06 Triplet ram lamb from DG154 daughter

AVAGO Debuts at Adelaide Royal

After a great showing at Sydney Royal where the 1 Avago ram and 2 Avago ewes recorded the highest scanned muscle measured in the shed, and were paced 3rd in both the Peter Taylor and Sires progeny group classes, we took Avago 25/05 to the Adelaide Royal where the White Suffolks this year were Feature Breed. Our original objective with Avago was to breed show quality sheep with muscle, and we certainly achieved this when Avago 25/05 recorded the one of the highest scanned muscle measurements seen in the White Suffolk breed and he is only an August drop ram. Recording a 51mm eye muscle depth , he had the top scanned depth of the 300 White Suffolk exhibits at Adelaide and was close to the highest measurement from all breeds in the shed. Consequently this young sire attracted plenty of attention and comment and was described by many as "a young ram ram with unbelievable muscling". Despite several offers, we have decided to retain this young sire who already has lambs on the ground.

AVAGO 25/05 "ATOMIC"

They Have Arrived!

The first drop of lambs out of selected White Suffolk ewes sired by Meikelson U20/98 are on the ground and looking great. This sire has aleady had success in the Suffolk breed with his progeny collecting Champion Ram at Dubbo 2006 and another young ram winning the Objective Measurement class. These sheep attracted plenty of interest at Dubbo, especially for the consistency of structure and type between all the progeny. The young lambs dropped at Pendarra are no different. Very even and no problems with any of the lambs, they could all be clones of each other despite the dams being from vastly different genetic backgrounds. We had a good result from some indifferent semen with 12 live lambs (5 ram lambs, 7 ewe lambs) and some very interesting progeny. The variation in the ewe base genetics includes ewes sired by Leahcim 85/98 , Galaxy Park 2340/98 (pure Galaxy Park ewe), Parilla 8/98 (White Dorper), Grand daughter of Kurralea 211/98 '5 Star', Detpa Grove 154/99 and Leahcim 20/99, so we will have some very diverse genetics to select from with a few lambs showing minimal colour. These lambs are exhibiting exceptional muscling and growth, even at an early age and we will be doing a feed conversion trial including some of these lambs. The pure Suffolk progeny are not only showing great muscling, but are lean and seem to have do ability so potentially these genetics could be the "curve benders" that the industry has been searching for. These lambs are currently in a mangement group that includes some of the leading White Suffolk sires, especially for muscle, so a good evaluation of the merit of these genetics will be achieved. It is anticipated that genetics from these lambs will be available for this years joining in the form of embryos and semen.

The first drop of Meikelson U20/98 sired lambs from White Suffolk ewes

Feed Efficiency Trial Preliminary Results

Early indications from our feed efficiency trial have produced some interesting results and confirm that, regardless of the appearance of a ram and the apparent growth, you cannot estimate Feed Efficiency. The following is a summary of the results so far with plenty more data to be collected. No specific data will be released until the trial is completed late in 2006.

After 8 weeks of intensive measurement, we have the first results emerging on most of the 40 ram lambs being trialled, and their is a significant amount of variation between individual ram lambs and their sire lines. With 20 different sire lines represented by the ram lambs, there are a number of sires that have consistently outperformed the majority of the group, indicating some degree of heretibility of this trait. The 3 outstanding sires are Pendarra 3050/04 , Linden 4878/03 who each have 3 progeny in the trial and Pendarra 2732/03 who has 2 progeny. Two young Pendarra 3050/04 progeny, 3513/05 and 3535/05 finished well ahead with with the highest Feed Efficiency values and the 3rd ram lamb from this sire finished in the top 30%. Linden 4878/03 sired the 3rd and 6th most efficient rams with a young sire from Pendarra 2732/03 (Jack) splitting these two. This was not surprising as "Jack" was an exceptional young ram lamb with a very high growth rate (News 2003) and has produced some very good progeny. Pendarra 2264/03 has two sons that also performed well, one finishing in the top group of young sires and the other being a very impressive ram and the heaviest ram lamb in the trial still with an acceptable Feed Efficiency value. These sires had the the most consistent progeny in the trial with several other sires producing variable results and some not performing as well, although many of these young sires look impressive.

The 2 top Pendarra 3050 sons had Feed Efficiencies over twice (2X) the average of the group and and the top group of 9 sires all were more than 50% above the average of the entire group. Although these are early results and data is still being collected and analysed, it does indicate to us that you cannot estimate Feed Efficiency and the effect it will have on the progeny that a particular sire will produce. It also confirms to us that Pendarra 3050/04 is an exceptional sire. His 2 top progeny in this trial are outstanding young rams, 3513/05 being a young sire that we were always intending to retain. Some of the other young sires we had selected to retain did not come up as well on Feed Efficiency.

FEED EFFICIENCY v's SIRE LINE OF RAM LAMBS IN TRIAL

Feed Efficiency

Perhaps the one area of the sheep industry that needs some attention and research is feed efficiency. Due to our involvement with Superwhites and our use of performance genetics within our AI program, we have a significant range of genetic diversity and have initiated a trial to investigate variation in feed efficiency within a group of ram lambs. We are currently analysing 40 ram lambs represented by 20 different sires which will expand into trials on the progeny from some of these ram lambs once lambing begins. Not only will weights be recorded but rams will be scanned to analyse where the feed to weight gain is being partitioned (fat or muscle). There is the possibility that this trial will link into some research being conducted by students at the University of Melbourne . We will let you know results as they are calculated.

Insemination using UK Suffolks

In collaboration with a prominant Suffolk breeder, we have inseminated a selection of White Suffolk ewes with semen from a Suffolk ram from the UK . The ram used is Meikelson U20/98 and is currently one of the highest ranking Suffolk rams on Lambplan having been used in some Suffolk flocks last year. These progeny look impressive and we eagerly await the results of this ground breaking cross into our White Suffolk ewes. The ewes we used were specially selected for attributes that will compliment those of the UK genetics and with our emphasis on muscling and growth, as well as management issues, we are confident the 1st generation will produce some very interesting progeny. Lambs are due on the ground mid June.

A sample of the ewes selected for joining to Meikelson U20/98 ( UK Suffolk)