With the industry shift to lamb brands focused on eating quality, one Victorian stud is trending well above breed average for intramuscular fat, shearforce (tenderness), muscle and weaning weight.
Fifth-generation farmer Roger Trewick and his wife Dianne, of Elmore, have been breeding Poll Dorsets under their prefix Pepperton since 1994 and were early adopters of LAMBPLAN performance recording, concentrating on growth, muscling and moderate fat levels.
Always on the front foot with technology, the couple started artificially joining their entire ewe flock in 1999 to maximise genetic gain.
Adding White Suffolks in 2004, Pepperton produces each year around 200 rams grazed on dryland lucerne with minimal grain feeding during dry times.
Data is collected by seven months of age on all rams, and they consistently test high for muscling and growth with moderate fat and lower birthweights.
Roger and Dianne’s son Kurtis and his partner Tara Gibbons have recently joined the management team at Pepperton.
The family was awarded a five-star data quality score by genetic evaluation service Sheep Genetics in July for their dedication to collecting and submitting high quality data.
“The heavy focus on genetics has been instrumental in producing rams with traits the market is demanding such as high muscling, fast growth and low to moderate birthweight,” Dianne said.
“The top index ram lambs from each of the sires used in the AI program are DNA-tested for intramuscular fat, shearforce, lean meat yield and dressing percentage resulting in excellent lamb eating quality indexes.”
In recent years Pepperton has made consistent genetic advancements towards improving the key profit drivers for their Poll Dorset and White Suffolk rams.
“Our birthweight average for the Poll Dorset is around 0.30 which is below breed average while White Suffolks is 0.32, under breed average. We don’t like very low birthweight as that impacts on lamb survival, particularly if there are a high number of twins and triplets born during cold conditions,” Dianne said.
“It’s all right to have high percentage when pregnancy testing but it’s the live lambs that really matter, and that should be around 150 per cent at least.”
Post weaning weight and post weaning eye muscle depth are both trending above the breed average and Australian Sheep Breeding Values analysis target.
Tara said the drive to higher post weaning weights had resulted in earlier maturity, higher weights, and a faster turn-off period for sucker lambs to market for producers.
“This also enables the ewes to quickly recover their body condition score for rejoining,” she said.
Dianne said the stud actively scoured the nation for high growth sires with positive post weaning fat depth to produce progeny that are resilient and sustainable in their environment.
“Anything from -0.5 to +0.5 is what we aim for — we have always targeted moderate fat as many of our rams go over Merino ewes.”
In the past decade, rapid genetic gain has been made in intramuscular fat (IMF) or marbling, trending from -0.85 in 2014 to -0.27 in 2023 in the Poll Dorsets, well above the breed average and analysis target. In White Suffolks it rose from -0.75 to -0.04 in the same period and is well above the breed average.
Pepperton began DNA testing rams for IMF in 2017 and sources leading industry sires for the trait to increase marbling and eating quality in carcases. During the past decade shearforce has also been rapidly decreasing and lamb eating quality increasing resulting in more tender lamb cuts and a better consumer eating experience.
For the past few years Pepperton has sold mixed sex lambs over the hook to Gundagai Meat Processors with DNA data obtained from the carcases submitted to Sheep Genetics.
Lambs are scanned at 200 days of age and any lambs with a Terminal Carcase Production index of less than 155 are sold over the hooks. Pepperton received a premium price for Gundagai Lamb Quality score 5+ carcases with higher IMF and lean meat yield.
“This means delicious tasting lamb for the consumer with no excess fat or waste for the processor,” Tara said.
She is a board member of Meat Elite Australia, an Australia wide group of progressive Poll Dorset breeders with the aim to deliver more than 20 per cent faster genetic improvement then the average for terminal sire groups.
Members have access to Meat Elite sire team rams DNA tested for shear force, IMF, lean meat yield and dressing percentage.
Members generally select for low to moderate birthweights, they collect weaning and post weaning weights from consistent management groups, scan all progeny for eye muscle and fat score depth, and undertake individual sheep worm resistance testing.
Pepperton runs 400 stud ewes, achieving an 82 per cent conception rate to AI this year.
A spring lambing commercial flock was recently established to value add to cast for age stud ewes to produce lambs for selling over the hook to spread cash flow and progeny test sires.
Pepperton will offer 50 Poll Dorset and 50 White Suffolk top indexing 2023-drop rams on-property at Elmore on Wednesday, October 16 at 1pm, interfaced with AuctionsPlus.
Among the repeat clients buying rams at last year’s sale were Greg Dean, Stawell, and his son Simon Dean, Camperdown, for their prime lamb enterprise at Landsborough. They select rams with high growth, muscling, moderate birthweight and fat above -0.5.
The family runs 1200 CentrePlus Merino ewes and join to White Suffolk rams to turn off trade lambs at four to six months at 18-24kg carcase weight over the hooks at Thomas Foods International.
Simon Dean said the Pepperton rams appealed for their combination of solid weaning weight, high growth, eye muscle area and low birthweight.