Maisters Swamp
Maister's Swamp Merino Stud skin technology is carefully balanced against other sheep characteristics including wool and frame. We achieve this with the assistance of Ron Rayner from Glanna Merino Stud, who has been our stud sheep classer for the past ten years. David is now taking the major role of the sheep classing decision making at the stud.
Maister`s Swamp has a balanced open approach to the fine or bold crimp debate, with both forms of crimp being developed in different families but on a productive skin type. We place emphasis on a larger frame sheep size with a deeper spring of rib. Wool characteristics displayed include greater brightness, a deeper precise crimp, great softness and nourishment, forming a distinct lock formation with good length.
Progeny from the last ten years are showing these new and improved traits. All lambs are carefully pedigreed to both the sire and dam, which assists us to form the distinct wool and sheep family types and allows sheep and wool producers to select genetics from a stable but diverse stud base.
PURE IN TYPE
At Maister`s Swamp we believe that predictable
and prepotent stud breeding will give commercial
wool growers the sustained productivity increases
that they seek. This without the downsides
of unconventional breeding techniques such as
figure breeding or continual mixed breeding hybrid
vigor techniques.
Due to its closed or semi closed flock situation,
our studs breeding is becomming highly prepotent.
This is why we strongly advocate using genetics
from Merryville or pure Merryville daughter studs,
thus keeping introductions pure in type.
FIBRE EFFICIENCY
Just like other industries, feed efficiency will become more important in the future. How many merino ewes produce 10% wool from their body weight? Very few. For example, a merino ewe weighing 50kgs, producing 5kgs of wool and rearing a healthy lamb, would be a very efficient ewe. To make my point a more relevant one, here is an example. JD 69, one of our sheded, 2 year old ewes cut 10.8kgs of wool at 16.6 micron, 2 weeks prior to shearing, her body weight was 70kgs, making her fibre effeciency figure 15.4% of her body weight. Adding to these outstanding figures, this ewe was also pregnant with a ewe lamb, illustrating what a truly amazing animal JD 69 is.
INDUSTRY TRENDS
The current industry trends for an early maturing, larger carcass
sized animal will eventually lead commercial growers down an unsustainable economic path. This is becoming evident after industry fads, such as lowering flock microns, has so evidently hurt commercial growers bottom lines.
At Maister`s Swamp we are striving to
deliver genetics that will give growers not only prepotent and predictable breeding results,
but just as importantly, make our merinos as economically productive as possible. This is achieved by producing as much quality wool as possible on an economically sized sound sheep.
SHEEP CONFORMATION
At Maister`s Swamp we believe that sheep types example conformation should override wool types, especially in the present wool market. In the past 5 years Maister`s Swamp has concentrated on eliminating poor sheep conformation traits, such as hockyness, shoulder displacement and more recently, foot structure. We believe these important traits will help commercial growers improve their bottom lines through improved lambing percentages, for example lamb survival rates, less foot lameness in wetter seasonal conditions and overall improved health and higher body weights for their breeding ewes enterprises.
At Maisters Swamp we specialise in providing answers
to your flock breeding needs. For more information simply
click on the button to contact us.