Breeding key to fertility

And South East SA farmers Neville and Celia Kernick are heading in the right direction, lifting their marking percentages at Rangefield, Field, by 14 per cent.

Last year for the first time they even had to sell a few of their extra lambs as stores.

The enthusiastic couple marked 127pc lambs from close to 400 Dohne ewes, run as a self-replacing flock, and 126pc for each Dohne ewe joined to White Suffolks, from a mob of 480 ewes joined.

Mrs Kernick is among more than 1700 sheep producers across Australia who have participated in the Lifetime Ewe Management Program estimated to represent between seven to 7.5 million ewes.

The Australian Wool Innovation-funded program delivers six hands-on training sessions a year to small groups over a two-year period.

Mrs Kernick says the knowledge gained from the local group of eight Field farmers has really helped them manage their pregnant ewes to minimise foetal losses.

It has emphasised the importance of condition scoring ewes at critical stages of the year and feed assessments post-100 days of gestation, to ensure the nutritional needs of their ewes are being met.

"Last year we lost 27pc from scanning to weaning but this year the difference was only 9pc," she said.

"It has really taught me it is about the year-long management of the ewe and making sure your ewes are in the right condition score at the right time of the year.

"I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to finetune their sheep enterprise."

Another key to their flock's improved fertility has been through genetics, buying rams with high maternal reproductive rates.

Their figures have been supplied since 2006 by their local stud breeder at Coonalpyn and the Kernicks have followed them closely in their ram selection.

"We keep an eye on all the Australian Sheep Breeding Values but in particular are looking at high eye muscle depth in an attempt to lift our dressing percentages, high weaning weights and the maternal reproductive rates," Mrs Kernick said.

Before sale they identify those rams with the desired figures they are interested in and then compare them to the Lambplan percentile tables.

Then they assess them visually on sale day.

Mrs Kernick said they will continue to push "as high as we can with our reproductive rates while still closely managing our ewes".

The Kernicks crop 450 hectares but sheep are a major part of the farming business on their 950ha property.

In 2006 the couple bought their first Dohne ram and have not looked back, gradually upgrading their Merinos to a pure Dohne flock.

They are really pleased with the high fertility, extra growth and carcase attributes of the breed.

The top Dohne ewe lambs are retained for breeding purposes and the older Dohne ewes are mated to White Suffolks.

The Kernicks have been wet-dry scanning since 2008, and four years ago decided to go the extra step differentiating singles and multiples.

This enables them to manage multiple-bearing ewes preferentially to single bearing ewes, and increase the fertility of future self-replacing ewes.

Their lambing season starts in late March and the aim is to have all the lambs sold by the end of October before grass seeds become a problem.

Their aim is to turn off 18- to 24-kilogram carcase weight Dohne and Dohne/White Suffolk lambs at five to six months.

* Full report in Stock Journal, July 24, 2014 issue.