Extending the Breeding Season with SheepMaster – Ram Sale 28th November 2024

As we gear up for our second annual ram auction, we’re excited to share the progress SheepMaster is making in extending breeding seasons and boosting lambing productivity. Here’s how our out-of-season breeding has shaped this year’s results – and why SheepMaster rams are a valuable addition to any flock.

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Aseasonal Breeding and 2024 Lambing

Lambing started early this year with our first out of season lambs being born 28^th January 2024 to our hoggets mated September 2023.  These lambs were weaned in April 2024 with the rams going in a few days later on 25^th April 2024.  They then started lambing again end of September, the same time as our hoggets.  These have lambed 260% this year, in fact our docking tallies were exactly the same as our scanning tallies – no losses.  We are looking forward to seeing how this out of season (8 month breeding) system progresses with positive outcomes to date. 

We have had fantastic weather this lambing with great lamb survival. The SheepMaster traditionally bred 2ths docked 160% to the ram. We are very happy with this result as we have always struggled getting performance out of 2ths.

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SheepMaster Parent Stud Auction

We are off to Australia on 4th November to visit and attend the SheepMaster Parent Stud Auction on 6th November. We are looking forward to meeting the new owners and seeing the SheepMaster Stud stock in person. During this visit we will hopefully be choosing other sires to bring back semen.

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Interviews and Expos

We attended the East Coast Expo in Wairoa in February where we took two of our rams and enjoyed talking to farmers from this area. We look forward to the 2025 East Coast Expo, presenting stock and chatting with farmers again.

We have been fortunate to have had an interview with Business Rural North which was published in their October Magazine.

We also have an up-and-coming interview with RNZ – CountryLife, so watch this space and visit this page for other interviews that we have done.

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2023 SheepMaster Auction Recap

Our inaugural auction was a success, and we thank all those that attended. Thank you to PGG Wrightsons, BIDR and Farmers Weekly who helped make the day the success that it was. This truly was a family event where even the kids had a part to play – Charlene (11 years old) was making café style coffees and Jorja (13 years old) was recording sales. We are looking forward to showing of this years line of rams. We will also have some of the 2ths ewes with lambs as well as some hoggets available for viewing.

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