Australian Whites

[Wishanger1]

perhaps they could breed a sheep that doesn't need it's carcase chilling ....that way it wouldn't need a fridge burning oil for 6 weeks as it's shipped halfway round the world

Agree. Shipping halfway round the world doesnt make sense. Bananas maybe but not lamb.

 

[Wishanger1]

At the rate we are going it wont be long before the Chinese will be causing mayhem in the indian and pacific ocean and blocking the shipping lanes. The market disruption should be a further opportunity for us British farmers if westminster can forget all the politics around trade deals and pull a few serious rabbits out of the hat.

 

[Wishanger1]

End of summer pics, still plenty to go at. Browned off but nothing to different from how our end of July or August would look.

 

[glasshouse]

Wool will be back!

 

[glasshouse]

Dont know what you find funny
Wool is a fantastic renewable biodegradable resource , far better than all that man made shyte thats polluting the planet.

 

[neilo]

Dont know what you find funny
Wool is a fantastic renewable biodegradable resource , far better than all that man made shyte thats polluting the planet.

It always has been, yet synthetics still displace it at every turn.

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a resurgence in wool’s fortunes, sadly.

 

[glasshouse]

It always has been, yet synthetics still displace it at every turn.

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a resurgence in wool’s fortunes, sadly.

We are in a different world now.
Man made fibres are a bigger causeof co2 emissions than cows ever will be.
Makes me laugh seeing just stop oil protestors clad in oil based clothes

 

[ringi]

perhaps they could breed a sheep that doesn't need it's carcase chilling ....that way it wouldn't need a fridge burning oil for 6 weeks as it's shipped halfway round the world

It still less oil used then is common for British lamb as the farming process is much lower intensive. Party they are not trying to keep too many people working on too little land.

 

[ringi]

So breed for production efficiency traits, as has been going on for many decades, rather than jumping on the made up methane bandwagon.

Practically very hard to do for sheap while measuring feed intake or totally controlling feed intake.

 

[glasshouse]

It still less oil used then is common for British lamb as the farming process is much lower intensive. Party they are not trying to keep too many people working on too little land.

Nonsense

 

[BAF]

You might be right or you might be wrong. However I personally am reluctant to criticize people who are putting a considerable amount of effort time and money (their own) into a project that they believe will bring benefits to the UK sheep industry. I am sure this sounds a bit pompous but at the end of the day if their business is selling breeding stock they will not get their money back let a return on their investment unless they can produce an animal that the UK commercial sheep farmer thinks will benefit his bottom line - whatever clothes it is or isn't wearing..
The sheep world like all agriculture is seeing huge changes and I am sure many of todays breeds will go the same way as your county's Norfolk Horn if current breeders don't embrace change

If i could extrapolate @spin cycle point a little. I think he was really trying to get at the fact that it wouldn't matter a hoot if sheep/cows/pigs produced less methane. The whole carbon/methane nonsense is all about appeasing the 'climate crisis' that Greta has told us is on, but even if the entire country went backwards a few thousand years to being cavemen it still wouldn't make a dent in the emissions from the big boys - China, India, Russia and America. If they're fat cats smoking cigars, we're more like one of their little farts. Stopping the farting won't stop the fat cats smoking.

 

[glasshouse]

If i could extrapolate @spin cycle point a little. I think he was really trying to get at the fact that it wouldn't matter a hoot if sheep/cows/pigs produced less methane. The whole carbon/methane nonsense is all about appeasing the 'climate crisis' that Greta has told us is on, but even if the entire country went backwards a few thousand years to being cavemen it still wouldn't make a dent in the emissions from the big boys - China, India, Russia and America. If they're fat cats smoking cigars, we're more like one of their little farts. Stopping the farting won't stop the fat cats smoking.

Its a bit like starving yourself to death to prevent famine in africa.

 

[easyram1]

With respect, that’s absolute tosh. The whole ruminant methane as a cause of climate change argument is nonsense, and those using the PAC chamber are just pandering to that idea and doing a disservice to the industry IMO. They are purely trying to score a sales point and should hang their heads in shame as far as I’m concerned.

That goes for all the heavily marketed breed/composite organisations that are jumping on board, not just those selling Aussie Whites.

I said You might be right or you might be wrong. However I personally am reluctant to criticize people who are putting a considerable amount of effort time and money (their own) into a project that they believe will bring benefits to the UK sheep industry. I am sure this sounds a bit pompous but at the end of the day if their business is selling breeding stock they will not get their money back let a return on their investment unless they can produce an animal that the UK commercial sheep farmer thinks will benefit his bottom line - whatever clothes it is or isn't wearing.

Which bit is tosh? You surely cannot doubt that Lowfootprintlamb are investing a huge amount of money and effort into their project and I am sure that the one partner, who you know well, would happily confirm the scale of their investment in the project. It really does not matter whether you or I think that ruminant methane and climate change is nonsense the only group whose opinion will matter in say the next 5-10 years from the sheep industry's perspective will be the consumer either in the UK or in the other parts of the world to whom we export our sheep meat.
'They are purely trying to score a sales point' I know that LFPL have spoken to many major players in the whole lamb supply chain and as they are starting from scratch they do not think that low methane rams will offer any great sales boost in the short term but may well be essential for certain outlets in the longer term.

'That goes for all the heavily marketed breed/composite organisations that are jumping on board, not just those selling Aussie Whites'. I assume that as ever I am included in this much despised group. so just a few observations

1. Neither we nor LFPL are part of the Government funded £2.9 Breed for Ch4ange Project. It is public knowledge that the members of this group include amongst many other general industry bodies - Innovis: SIG ( the Exlana breeding group ): Centurion Dorset Breeders: PRLB ( Performance Recorded Lleyn Breeders ): NSA. The role of the NSA is as I understand it, to disseminate the data gathered from this project involving a tiny % of ram breeders amongst the whole of the UK sheep industry. The particular problem I have is that I need raw data for my sheep from using a PAC chamber so that I can deruve EBVs for methane reduction primarily for use within my own flock and no general data and or knowledge derived from this trial is of any meaningful use to me.
2. So we decided that we needed to be in the game of methane reductions particularly as the last 10 maternal rams we had imported from NZ all had PAC chamber methane figs with them. We therefor tested 12 offspring off 5 different imported rams last summer ie 60 in total. Very Big bill ( a lot more/hd than CT scanning which of course you use and which is certainly heavily subsidised in England. Our Methane Testing attracted no subsidy, so we spent the money and feel that at least we are in the game. How much interest from clients ? not a lot yet but all sheep breeding is a marathon not a sprint.
3. Heavily Marketed: Yes we try very hard to sell our rams because that is what pays the bills. I always remember Global Ovine saying the first time I heard him speak in N Ireland in 2005 that rams to a commercial sheep farmer were no different to a load of fertiliser ie they were just another input cost and he would judge their worth on whether they increased his bottom line. So I don't think there is anything magical about selling rams and as a seller you have to do your best to sell your product for the most you can achieve. I would observe that once you are outside the comfort of a breed society there is no one else to blame for poor sales other than yourself.
4. Another point about marketing spend. I have in my office this quote from Dan Kennedy, an American Marketing Whizzo 'Don't forget whoever can spend the most money to acquire a customer wins' The total we have spent on promoting our sheep has been huge when all added together. However in terms of expense / each ram sold ( that to date are over 5700 ) it will be no more than the entry fee and auctioneers commission for 1 ram sold at Builth!! In terms of acquiring clients the average lifetime purchases of each of our clients is >15 x the cost spent on acquiring them.
5. Finally 'heavily marketed' and 'bandwagon' comments just imply that we only sell rams because we spend lots of money on marketing and advertising and dreaming up the latest fad. This really is not giving very much respect to our huge number of repeat clients,many of whom have been with us from the very start of this journey and many of whom are regular contributors to this this Forum and who over the years have become true family friends and supporters of our endeavours. Nor does it acknowledge the risks we as a family of tenant farmers took back in 2006 when we sold our pedigree suffolks and asked Ian @Farmgene to find us some NZ suffolks. There then followed huge antipathy from Pedigree breeders that accompanied years and years of really hard work firstly from Philippa and more recently from Nick Menna and James

 

[easyram1]

Sorry my omission The Breed for Ch4nge Grant given to the group above was £2.9 million

 

[spin cycle]

It still less oil used then is common for British lamb as the farming process is much lower intensive. Party they are not trying to keep too many people working on too little land.

what absolute bollox...here is the maths

is it though? or is it one of those 'myths' that's spread?...i did some googling/calculating/extrapolating whilst listening to the gas v canaries last night

average container ship....carries 15k containers each holding 20t.....burns 200t diesel /day....it's 55 days to steam from nz to uk

so...55 days @ 200t diesel/day is 11k tonnes of fuel.....divide by 15k containers is 0'73333 t diesel.....1176 litres in a tonne so....862 litres per container.....2,7 kg co2 emitted/litre so 2327kg of co2 per container.....so each kg of kiwi lamb emits 11.64% of it's own weight just on it's shipping journey

it could get worse....but i need a bit more research cos my intial findings can't be right....can they?......so a reefer container burns 120l fuel a day keeping the lamb cool......55days x 120l x 2.7kg co2/l equals a whopping 17.8t of co2

add the two together and each kg of kiwi lamb emits a kg of co2 just to get here

.

 

[ringi]

If my aim was to reduce ruminant methane while keeping meat production the same, I would not be starting with measuring methane output from each sheap!

A few things I think will have a lot higher nationwide impack.

• Forced control of Ice-berg Diseases, as ewes dieing on farms have about same lifetime methane as ewe sold into food chain.
• Better breeding of rams so more lambs are finished from grass on the farm they born on.
• Measure kg of lambs (say at 20 weeks) for each ewe, and cull any ewe that is giving significantly lower kg of lamb. (Unless on farms where twin rearing ewes need buying in lots of feed)
• Put sheap on arable farms so less oil/has is used for fertilizer on arable farm
• Mix sheap and castle to help control parasites and allow longer recover time between grazing
• Get consumers buying frozen meat, so meat can be produced at most efficient times of year
• Speed up transition to electric transport so less oil used by consumers driving to supermarkets.
• Etc, etc

Everytime satellites are used to measure methane it is discovered that methane leaks from oil/gas wells are a lot higher then claimed. I see no possibility of reducing this as we can't enforce regulations in all countries so needs a radical reduction in oil/gas use. We now have to technology to generate most electricity from wind/solar, convert most transport to electricity, convert most building heating to heatpumps and even use excesss renewable electricity to make fertilizer.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Albury on the NSW/Victoria border......similar terrain to the Lake District

youre the one talking bollox ,I know Albury and that area it has nothing similar to the Lake District
you arent a sheep farmer either are you so why the novelity interest ? that usually ends in a fit and a fart farmer from what ive seen over the years.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Appreciate the constructive comments though, theres always more to learn from experience and advice. Thanks

ok then read and learn which you obviously need to.
There's plenty of information from practical working sheep farmers business's on this forum if not elsewhere.

my advice.

 

[sheepwise]

Low methane is likely to be related to better conversion of feed into meat.

Have you any evidence of this? All the trials I’ve heard of have shown no economic benefit .

 

[ringi]

Have you any evidence of this? All the trials I’ve heard of have shown no economic benefit .

The economic benefits (if any) will be higher stocking rates without reducing grouth rates or less winter feed without reducing grouth rate. I would not expect to see any good evidence until many generations have been selected for low methane.

Breeding for feed convertion is proven for dairy cattle. I don't know of any large enough trails to show if methane is a predictor of feed conversion, but as the methane production uses up feed, it likely is.

Remember how long it took to get real world edvidance that selecting for low FEC was useful.

I believe @Tim W is doing both methane measurments and feed conversion trails, so hopefully this data will be published.