Southdown Sheep Society, NZ

Alliance Group’s Pure South Handpicked 55 Day Aged Beef has been voted the best grass-fed ribeye steak in the world.

Alliance Group will be deploying probes created by an Australian company to measure the marbling of beef and intramuscular fat percentage in lamb.

This, according to the meat processor, will provide consistent meat quality across the board. A higher intramuscular fat (IMF) percentage would equal a good outcome.

Alliance Group livestock and shareholder services general manager Murray Behrent said the probe will go in the 12th rib of the lamb and cattle beast, analysing how much IMF or marbling there was prior to going across the scales.

According to the company, IMF and marbling percentages were the two largest contributors to the sensory experience when eating red meat.

Farmers would benefit from the data by making informed decisions around their breeding programs, where they were buying from, and what feed would give them the best returns (a reticular feed enabled a higher marbling on the animal), Behrent said.

The probes, made by MEQ, had been trialled at the company’s Timaru and Ōamaru plants for the past nine months, and would be rolled out to other locations, including Southland, in the coming months.

“Once the probes are rolled out across all the lamb and beef chains, we’ll send the farmers data on how their animals have performed.

“Then, over time, we will be able to start telling farmers which animals have high intramuscular fat and what those farmers are doing to achieve those good outcomes,” Behrent said.

The probe would also help in detecting if the IMF was consistent across lambs from different mobs.

Alliance Group’s meat consumer – the retailer or the food service or chef – would get a consistent product, giving the end consumer the same experience with the food, Behrent said.

“It’s all about consistency of the product. That taste is really important for chefs when cooking the product,” he said.

In Southland, the first machines would be rolled out from December and the rollout would be finished by the end of March 2024.

“I do know that part of marbling or intramuscular fat is driven by genetics and feed. Southland is in a good space to provide animal welfare because of the abundance of feed. All animals always have surplus grass to eat, and that good quality feed will ensure a higher probability of marbling,” Behrent said.

The probe claimed to withstand “the extremes of the processing environment” and cause “zero damage to the product”, according to its website.

By Sally Rae, Rural Life, ODT Dec 3 2018

Don Murray, of Lawrence, views some of his Southdown sheep.

 Southdown sheep might be a breed steeped in history — it is the oldest of the terminal sire breeds in the UK — but a group of breeders in New Zealand is firmly focused on positioning it for the future, as  Sally Rae reports.

Lawrence farmer Don Murray quips he is a novice when it comes to breeding Southdown sheep.

There were stalwart breeders who had been there “forever” and from whom he had learned a lot since establishing his stud in 2006.

Mr Murray said he had always liked breeding sheep and was interested in recording. His father-in-law, who had bred Southdowns, further encouraged his interest to venture into stud breeding.

He had always been impressed by the breed, particularly its early maturity and ability to get lambs on the truck early.

His stud ewe numbers had built up to about 240 and were run in conjunction with a total operation of just under 5000 stock units on 550ha, following the recent acquisition of more land.

It was a hill country property and so it was a different environment from some areas where stud sheep were farmed, and had larger paddocks and gullies, yet the breed thrived.

He sold 60-odd rams a year and with many being used for hogget mating, he thought he had better go back to that himself.

Now two years into hogget lambing, it was “just so easy”, resulting in good lambs at weaning and a very saleable product.

Last year, 40% of his works lambs went on the truck at weaning and a lot of those would have been Southdown-cross, he said.

Southdown-cross progeny test lambs being graded by Miles Medlicott at weaning, watched by John Macaulay.

That was where the real advantage of the breed was — “the ability to be gone” — and to yield at a variety of weights.

Now breeders were trying to the breed “to the next level” and the establishment of a Southdown progeny test was about providing validation, he said.

The progeny test, based at Simon and Kirstin Engelbrecht’s property at Stoneburn, near Dunback, was now in its second year and involved 20 sires from 14 breeders from Northland to Southland.

The Engelbrechts did not traditionally use Southdowns but were interested in supplying breeding ewes for the programme.

The couple were very successful commercial farmers, winning the Otago Ballance Farm Environment Awards and the New Zealand ewe hogget competition.

Mr Engelbrecht was responsible for getting the ewes in the trial mated and the lambs on the ground.

Lamb survival of the Southdown-cross progeny was excellent with less than 4% losses from lambing to tailing. Lambs would then go to Southdown breeder Chris Medlicott’s specialist fattening operation near Waimate to be finished.

One of the drivers of the programme, which is being supported by Beef + Lamb NZ Genetics, is Oamaru Southdown breeder and veterinarian Dave Robertson.

It could be difficult for smaller breeds to get scale to get good performance recording numbers, Mr Robertson said. The solution was to have a progeny test where the environment was standardised.

Objectives included getting better accuracy and reliability with performance recording, better genetic connectedness between breeders, comparing commercial meat quality traits within the breed, exploring some of the genetic technologies that were available for modern sheep breeding and looking at things like intramuscular fat and eating quality, and demonstrating the commercial relevance of the breed to industry.

There had always been the perception that Southdown and Southdown-cross had good eating quality but one of the aims was to get numbers around that.

Stoneburn farmer Simon Engelbrecht (left) and South Canterbury Southdown breeder Chris Medlicott discuss the logistics of the Southdown progeny trial.

“We want Southdown sires that produce lambs that grow fast, yield well and taste good — with the science to prove it,” he said.

Traits other than production were also important to breeders, with the likes of structural soundness and feet still important to the breed.

To be able to have a “snapshot into the future” of what a ram lamb could produce was very powerful. It removed some of the “guesswork and hoping something clicks” with a breeding programme.

The next step was how to harness that information and it had the potential to change how genetics were chosen.

Southdown New Zealand president Todd Anderson, of Winton, said the breed had continued to evolve over time to meet the requirements of the industry.

The main focus was to maintain “killable growth’ — meaning that lambs were killable at any stage, from 14kg or 15kg if need be through to 25kg “or whatever”, Mr Anderson said.

Breeders had a strong belief that it was not just about mass production, it was about quality of product.

The only way for New Zealand to economically progress was to sell a premium product to people that had the means to pay for it.

Part of that was that the consumer would want a story. The Southdown  was one of the oldest sheep breeds in the world. And as far as meat quality was concerned, it was about grain, colour and marbling.

Mr Anderson said the breed was  the wagyu of the sheep world in some ways and produced “beautiful quality meat”.

There had to be a conscious effort not to lose those attributes and so the instigation of the progeny trial was very exciting.

Carcass attributes, finishing ability, feed efficiency and killable growth were factors that were important to  Southdown New Zealand  as breeders, as well as to its clients in the sheep industry,  if it wanted to be in that global niche market.

New Zealand needed to realise that if it continued to sell based on commodity needs, then it would fast-track itself to the “bottom of the rung”.

Southdown breeders had always been proactive in terms of embracing science, so that was not something new, while stockmanship was also an important aspect.

The future — by continuing to maintain killable growth and a quality product for the consumer — was looking bright, but breeders also acknowledged they could not “stand still and rest on our laurels”, he said.

Veteran Southdown breeder John Macaulay, of South Canterbury, applauded the progeny test initiative.

He watched last season’s lambs go through the process at Alliance Group’s Smithfield plant on January 31,  almost 450 lambs weighing in at an average of 19.4kg.

He was impressed with things in the cooling room, where the lambs were a “sight to behold”. Looking across at comparable lambs of other breeds, they were “all over the place with no uniformity”, he said.

Ultimately, it was about growth rate, muscling and protein  being produced as quickly as possible and the Southdown was one of the breeds that could do that.

There were about 70-odd registered breeders in New Zealand and most were “totally dedicated”, which was one of the reasons the breed was performing, he said.

SHOWCASE: Mt Taranaki provides a backdrop to Mangaotea Farm owned by Robin and Jacqueline Blackwell, who enjoyed success in the 2014 Taranaki Farm Environment Awards.

The taste of success in the 2014 Taranaki Ballance Farm Environment Awards has whetted the appetite of Tariki farmers Robin and Jacqueline Blackwell.

PASSIONATE ABOUT FARMING: Robin and Jacqueline Blackwell won four merit prizes in the 2014 Taranaki Farm Environment Awards.

The couple, who own Mangaotea Farm, a multi-faceted operation that includes breeding and selling bulls, dairy grazing and a sheep stud, won four merit prizes in the competition, held in Taranaki this year for the first time.

Now held in 10 regions, the Farm Environment Awards are organised by the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust which formed a partnership last year with the Taranaki Regional Council to bring the contest to Taranaki.

Tikorangi’s Trewithen Farm, owned by Faull Farms and operated by sharemilkers Loie and Tony Penwarden, were the supreme winners.

Contest judges highlighted the Blackwells’ commitment to and passion for Mangaotea Farm, which winters 11,327 stock units on a 90:10 cattle to sheep ratio.

At Mangaotea Farm the Blackwells breed angus, hereford and murray grey bulls and buy jerseys as weaners for their annual on-farm sale. The sale has grown from 60 bulls at their first one 17 years ago to 180 yearlings and two-year-olds at this year’s 18th event on September 18.

As well as breeding bulls, they also graze young dairy stock for long-term clients and operate a southdown stud. Demand for their southdowns rams is so great they can’t breed enough.

After the bull sale, bulls can remain on the property until November 20 when paddocks are shut up so 1500 bales of hay can be made in late summer for winter use on the farm and for sale. They also make 350 bales of silage.

Last year’s drought and this year’s dry spell have been challenging. Last spring they made extra supplement to fill any feed deficit. “I like to have it there in case, to have feed in the bank. We’ll keep doing that,” Robin Blackwell said.

The two dry years have also prompted the couple to investigate ways of harnessing water on the property, where annual rainfall is 1800mm.

The 658ha Mangaotea Farm consists of flat to easy rolling country with some steep ridges and gullies. Its high point is 307m above sea level.

Robin grew up in the Tariki area and in 1980 he took over the original 80ha block of Mangaotea that his father, Maurice, had bought in 1963. The couple have gradually increased the size of their holding, purchasing five neighbouring blocks between 1991 and 2009 and leasing a 215ha adjacent property. Their total effective area is 591ha.

They’ve established infrastructure like fenced drains, laneway and shelter with an eye for ease of management. Four kilometres of fenced laneways across the farm allow stock to be moved easily.

The farm takes its name from the Mangaotea Stream which runs through the property. Fencing and planting the stream began in the 1990s and so far they’ve fenced 14.4km of streambank and planted 3300 plants.

They’re also fencing and planting minor tributaries to keep stock out of waterways. “It saves time and money. We don’t lose stock and we don’t have to clean the drains,” said Jacqueline Blackwell. “Fencing the drains means less work in the long run. We don’t have to spend time clearing them because they don’t get blocked and we never lose stock.”

Robin said riparian fencing and planting was part of any development both because it protected the environment and made wintering of cattle much easier. “Any development is viewed long-term. We do it once and we do it properly.”

They’ve also placed two 1.5ha peat swamp areas with mature kahikatea in a Queen Elizabeth II National Trust covenant and they’re planning to establish covenants on other areas of the farm.

Under a Taranaki Regional Council land management plan, they’ve left erosion-prone land in native vegetation or retired it.

They were persuaded by TRC land management officer Jessica Hyland to enter the Ballance awards.

“We hadn’t thought about it but we thought we’d like to give it a go. We like to push boundaries because it’s good to benchmark against others,” Robin said. “But there’s no such thing as the perfect farm.”

The contest provided an opportunity to step back from their business and look at it objectively. “You get so busy in the day-to-day activities that you don’t always sit back and look at the big picture.”

Despite their success, Jacqueline said their involvement with the contest didn’t feel complete.

“We’re always open to opportunities to showcase what we do and we work well as a team, bouncing ideas off each other. We love to showcase our product and compare it against the rest of the country. We genuinely love what we do.”

The couple want to be in the top 10 per cent of farms for performance. She said with repeat clients in all facets of their business, they believed their customers were satisfied. “We think ahead and think about the consumer and the way they would view our property.”

Robin described the level of competition as impressive. He enjoyed the positive atmosphere of the awards evening and found the stories of other contestants stimulating.

Feedback from the judges highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of their operation. “The weaknesses they mentioned were those areas in the back of our minds where we thought we should be doing more. So we’re acting on suggestions to build strengths in those areas.”

One weakness was the lack of written health and safety documentation which, with just one staff member, they had not developed.

Judges said the way the couple managed their multi-faceted operation was a strength, as was their infrastructure, biodiversity, animal health and sustainability. The judges were impressed with their measures to protect stock health and their awareness of the risk posed by movement of multiple stock classes in and of the property.

In time their adult children want to be part of the business. “Our job is to build the brand and set it up for them to diversify and carry it on,” Jacqueline said.

Daughter Zarrah works on a sheep station in Australia, son Hamish is an earthmoving contractor in Marlborough and Daniel is a software engineer in London.

In the past the couple have succeeded in Beef + Lamb NZ’s Steak of Origin awards, three times as semi-finalists and once as a finalist.

This year is the fourth they have entered the contest. Two angus animals and a murray grey were processed at Taranaki Abattoirs at Stratford in March. Semifinalists will be announced on Monday.

Jacqueline said the couple was thrilled with their success at the awards. They won Beef+ Lamb New Zealand’s livestock award, Hill Laboratories harvest award, Donaghys farm stewardship award, and the Taranaki Regional Council sustainability award.

Their team of supporters, including sole employee Mike Johnson, Merial Ancare territory manager Tony Hammond, PGG Wrightson’s Kim Harrison, CMK’s Brian McFarlane, of Stratford, Taranaki Veterinary Centre vet Craig Hassell, BNZ’s Leean Nelson and Alison Sulzberger and Silver Fern Farms’ Phil Morresey, joined them at the awards evening in New Plymouth earlier this month.