This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have a good yarn about Ag life with producers who are having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements, making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get a laugh out of some of their stories and also pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host,
Neroli Brennan. In our last episode, we introduced you to Anthony Shepherd as he spoke to us about his own production system and how discipline in management and repeatability are his keys for success. In today's episode, we continue our conversation with Anthony as he begins by telling us how he knows he's running the right enterprise. Anthony shares how he overcomes the issues of identifying multiple bearing ewes that don't raise both twins with some clever technology called Smart Shepard.
As you'll hear Anthony explain, this technology allows him to identify the opportunities to improve his flock's fertility through removing the less productive ewes and chasing optimal performance. Local land services mixed farming advisor, Rohan Leach sat down with Anthony for this episode where they worked out that there's a difference between loving Merinos and admiring them.
You're obviously a big Merino man and you love them.
Just hold on the word love a bit.
Admirer. Admirer. How do you know you've picked the right sheep enterprise? When considering the rise of Dorpers more recently, there's lots of first cross producers out there that will be first cross producers until they die. How do you know that Merinos are right for you?
The first thing, and that's a great question, and I get asked that question by a lot of... What's the most profitable and I'll go, " The most profitable is the one that you enjoy most doing." If you go, " Right, I've got this Merino, why isn't everyone doing the Merino and what I'm doing?" And some people might try it, don't do well at it, because they don't enjoy it. We've got to enjoy stuff, right? Why get up? So I'll go back in 2019 and the height of the drought and
I'm running around and everyone's feeding animals. Sheep barley was at, I don't know, 450 to 500 bucks a tonne or whatever, depending on carrier costs and all those things. And I'm looking at these first cross ewes. I've had a lot of clients with first cross ewes and shedding breeds, and there's a lot of 90 to 100 kilogram use out there, a heap. Now, if you talk about a DSC thing, to maintain that, they have
a huge energy requirement every day. And so what's important to me is that also my average body weight here, I know what it is, because I do data and there are 64. 8 kilograms. And so as an example, they need around 11 and a half megajoules of energy per day. One kilogram of barley will give you 10.8 megajoules of barley per day. So you can do the maths versus a 90 kilogram ewe as a dry sheep will need about 21 and a half megajoules per day, God forbid it lactating and rearing too. It
turns into nearly 40 megajoules. And you divide that 10. 8 available in one kilogram of barley into that 40 every day for maintenance, that's nearly four kilograms of barley, which physically they can't do. But if they were to do that and they're on, you're running them on dirt, which is what drought was to maintain that condition. If you think about, I'll be nice and say the barley was 400 bucks a ton, that's 40 cents a kilogram, that's $1. 60 a day on that ewe times 1000 ewes times 30 days,
60 days, 90 days. That's a bill. I choose Merino because I enjoy it and there's a lot of challenges with Merinos they get a bad rep for being a bad mother. I'll argue strongly knowing what I know, I've been involved with a lot of research with the CSIRO in the early days and doing a lot of work and I was involved in new technologies. One, I helped develop the bio clip, which was the harvest removal of wool. I know that the marine AU, there's a huge diversion of proteins.
And so as an industry, and we give a bad rep to the Merino, you've been a bad mother, we've actually selected for that in regard to the more we select on wool because we can see it. We're telling genetically that all the protein from my loosen or whatever go into the wool chamber, not into repro. We haven't selected for repro. And so everyone says Merinos are bad mother, that's our fault. And I've got this huge fecundity going on in Merino sheep and I've aligned it with the
right stud and I've got discipline. There's a thing called nutrition, there's a thing called animal health. And been not reactive, but preventing management with it.
That maternal component that you've just mentioned there, it's probably a great segue. We did hint at it earlier in the podcast. But yeah, a big issue in the sheep industry at the moment is finding out the maternal pedigree in commercial flocks. So studs are probably able to justify the more expensive cost of genomics testing, but I believe you utilize a lower cost method. What is that?
About five years ago I got involved with a system called Smart Shepherd, which is developed by a man called Dave Rubie, who I'm now involved with in the Smart Shepherd technology. What Smart Shepherd is, Bluetooth collars that go on the ewe and the lamb around lamb marking time. They're on 48 hours and what we do is pair the Bluetooth collar to the sheep's EID tag. So we are mapping the Bluetooth address of the collar to the sheep's identification, so that belongs to that sheep while it's
on the sheep. And we do that on both the ewe and the lamb. Then they've got the collar on for 48 to 72 hours depending on that age of the lamb I should say. And while it's on there, what's happening is the Bluetooth address on the lamb collar is being mapped to the ewe's collar and it's about repeatability and proximity of a Bluetooth address to a Bluetooth address.
And so when we take them off after 48 hours, we will... A handheld device were developed with software program, a web app in the handheld device and it does the pairing up. It also will then read and turn off the collars. So it takes about, let's say we are putting on collars on 100 ewes and 140 lambs, that'll take about an hour and a half to do, to put them on. And I get myself and someone else to help me to do that. And then 48 hours later I'll come
back with a handheld. You get them in, we just got to unclip the collars. That it'll take, I don't know, half an hour to take them off. And while we're taking them off, this handheld device will read the data and turn off the collars remotely. Then once I've read them all, time we've taken off the collars, they're pretty much read, that information,
I will submit it. We've got a server in Armidale in the New England and New South Wales, and we will have pedigree within 10 minutes of it being submitted. And so basically the collar's gone on today and 50 hours later, because time you take them off and read them, they'll have pedigree on those animals. And there's a cost of $ 4 an animal, successful pedigree. Anything that doesn't get pedigree, there's no charge on that. And we will always get
sheep that won't have pedigree. And at the end of the day, we're identifying ewes that are good maternal ewe, and where they're in their environment of which ones are rearing twin or single or triplet, or if there's a ewe there that's not a good maternal mum and we don't get enough repeatability and proximity of the lamb to the ewe. We can't give that. We can't guarantee that. And so the reason might be she might have a
little fatty udder, she mightn't have an udder. It could be a twin lamb that's a runt and it's the more dominant of the two twins that is taking all the milk and the other one's been left behind. There's lots of reasons. And so people say, "Is it as accurate as DNA?" DNA, you'll get the real genomic mother and the genomic lamb
to the mother. It's either more accurate or less accurate. Why I'm saying that is we will, the maternal ewe, we've had lots of time, we've done the DNA, we'll pick up another lamb because the actual true mother to the lamb, the DNA lamb isn't a good maternal mother. So that lamb is going to find other milk from another ewe that allows it to drink its milk. So we're actually identifying better maternal ewes. And with the report we're getting this,
let's call it a relationship number. And so at the end of the day, that relationship number, the higher the number, the more times of the lamb spent near the ewe while the collars were on. And we're using that, it's early days, but we're looking at that number to see if that relates to the bigger the number, is that a better
maternal ewe? Also at lamb marking, I get a lamb marking weight, I've got lamb weigh boxes we've developed and they just drop out of the cradle and we get that first weight, they've got an EID tag and we get a weight and we've got their first weight at lamb marking. Then I get a weight at weaning, so therefore I have two weights, one at lamb marking, one at weaning. I've actually got weight
gain while they're on their mother. And so does that relationship number relate to weight gain because they're spending more time with mothers sucking on milk? We'll see, I think I have a feeling in my waters about it.
And that would give you really good data on, well, if you were a stud for example, really good data on the actual milk production.
Yeah, on the maternal aspect of that ewe, right? It's all right to wean more lambs that do weight gain, isn't it?
Right. That's the goal. So practically, apart from people who are maybe a bit obsessed with this thing, as I'm picking up here, this solves that problem for twin bearing mobs that they were scanned as a twin, but you don't know whether they've actually raised both of those lambs.
Oh, that's a big fault of the industry. People that do one thing, preg scan, I don't know what the stats are on that, how many in industry preg scan versus not. I'm not sure, but I think it's about 50 or 60%.
Okay.
And doing multiples with that.
I think that goes back down to about 20 to 30% of those.
So let's say 30%, be nice. So that is 30% of industry that does multiple scanning and all the twins are put out together. Let's say there's 100 twin ewes going with paddock, how many lambs, especially in a Merino mob, how many lambs marked out of that? And you wouldn't get much arguments about, around that 130 lambs potentially. So to me the potential to actual, you've got 70 potential lambs that didn't make it through that lambing. That to me is opportunity about how
do we do that? And I can tell you now, and I did all the stuff with the EID and I don't do it anymore because I know that the repeatability in a ewe without an udder at lamb marking every second year, they'll not have an udder at lamb marking. I've got big numbers around big commercial producers that we've got year- on- year- on- year information on that. That's reality. And so sleep straight in bed at night by getting rid of the ewe without the udder at lamb marking, they are a bad employee for
the business. They are cost of production for the business. They're the reason why people lose money. They're the most expensive ewe on the farm because of all the costs that have gone into that ewe and at lamb markings, she's given you the bird.
So we've got all this complex technology and methods to solve these problems that we've got, but it gets back to what we were talking about earlier of just those fundamental wet and drying, scanning, all of the basic best management practice.
Identify the pregnant ewe, right? Preg scanning and then lamb marking, which you've identified that, you've classed it, and then identify the one that has not borne you a dividend. And so in a Merino world, there's still a value of the wool, but my goodness me, in a first cross or a shedding breed, what else should they do? They should get pregnant and they should rear lamb. What else are they there for? So I'll go another way. Can you imagine in a dairy, if a cow didn't have
an udder, what would happen to it? Right?
Yeah. It's the finest burger patties you've ever seen.
So what's the difference with a shedding breed or a first cross sheep? And I get lamb markings, I understand it's busy, but if you, on average with anyone, we're doing this checking udders at lamb marking and I'm taking out between five and 8% of ewes. The people haven't done it. Up to 20%, but there's a lot of that 8% to 12%, a lot in that space we have to put on another person. Well, you're paying someone 300 bucks a day and they're taking out ewes, let's say, I'll be nice,
let's say there's 8% ewes out of 100, so you take out eight ewes. Today, they're worth 150 bucks. Does that pay for that person doing the wet and drying? Maybe. And maybe then you haven't got those animals that are going to cost you money again in year two and three and four by not getting pregnant and not rearing lamb.
Yeah, the results are repeatable and cumulative.
Absolutely. And therefore the accuracy goes up about what we're getting down the track.
Well, and you've proved it in the fact that you've started with someone's culls.
Fore grower's culls.
So you've taken them from in those first few years, what were your scanning weaning rates to use joints?
Weaning rate in those first three years? 69, 72 and 71%.
And...
Death Valley.
You've brought them up to your 130 odd percent.
Yep. Two years joined.
In a number of 10 years?
Yeah, seven years?
Yep.
So with discipline and reduction, and the big one is now I'm under 1% with no udders at land marking. I'm now at 90% getting pregnant in the first three weeks, and that is an objective. And also my oldest ewe is a five- year- old. So after weaning a lamb as a five- year- old, they are sold. And now I'm getting more bids for those ewes because they've learned about here that those ewes have stayed on this place in the breeding program because they've ticked the boxes on pregnancy,
rearing lamb year- on- year on year- on- year. And so those ewes, they're a highly fecundate ewe. They're a five- year old and people will join them to a terminal and they'll rear lamb still as a 6- year- old and good wool, right? They ticked all the boxes so they are buying a second hand car with a full service record and knowing that it's been looked after.
Let us know when they next go up on Auctions Plus, would you?
Yeah, yeah.
Mate, we've probably gone way over time, but I've had a cracker today. But just for my last couple of questions, what do you see as the big issue in Australian ag at the moment?
Oh my goodness. How much time did you say we've got?
We're over.
We're way over. Well, the biggest in ag, the cost since COVID, the cost of production has gone through the roof and the inconsistency on the return on where the money goes in and the return on whatever the product is and people not understanding that ewe is a driver for the return on investment from the cost of production. Now we've just got to get smarter with understanding that there's a
whole range of increase in cost of production. There's a lot of that 150 to 250% increase in cost of reduction on all aspects of running these farms and understanding what are the profit drivers, what are the low hanging fruit profit drivers in ag, relative to what is important to each producer?
There's so much, I think the cost price squeeze-
It's narrow. The last year when the lambs dropped off the... All sheep, all protein cattle, everything was off the cliff. And what happened to the cost of production at the same time? They crossed over and they parted ways. They were going the wrong way, both of them wrong. I would love consistency in being able to... Because I do a lot of benchmarking, a lot of growers on budget to actual work and also using AOD and doing the benchmarking. So we've got
this whole... And understanding true costs and understanding the profit drivers and time well spent on those profit drivers.
Is that a call for a quota? Maybe.
I didn't say that. I did not say that. It just does me head in there. That same animal this time last year is worth, I don't know, three bucks a kilogram and today it's worth $7 and $ 8 a kilogram. And these awesome producers are investing good money in good genetics, good pastures, clean pastures, good clean protein going through processes, wool, et cetera, and they're not getting paid for it. Maybe it's an onus on us as producers, not to be
price takers, but actually makers. And so I've got a bunch of growers and we're in conversations about that now with end users on product. I mean we're sick of it at the end of the day, taking it.
Yeah, that's a good one. And I think the power of collaboration and banding together-
And we've got the power of the information on what our animals are doing and there's a value to that. Companies, the classic is Gundagai Lamb, paying for the right animal and it's the only probably someone buying animals offers or wool offers that is actually... Normally what we call a premium is reducing excuses to buyers to discount the wool or
to discount the product or whatever it is. The Gundagai one where actually if you meet all their criteria, they actually give you a bonus on top of the base. So that's actually, you might nearly call it a premium. And that's an incentive for me to be better, to do better, to get more into that bonus, to get more money because I'm doing better work.
That might lead into my next and last question, what's the big win for ag in this use?
Well, I think the big win is this area. So where we are now, what the big win for ag in Australia is that our export markets are growing. And so what countries overseas love about Australian product is all our animals are not running feedlots at the end of the day or the majority aren't. And countries importing our product like that and they love the story behind our animal, be
it the wool or the protein that they're buying. And that's a big strength for Australia and we've got to understand that because we're now exporting, we need to be more disciplined in making sure that our product stays that way because we've got a big advantage over a lot of other countries that don't have that and we need to keep it clean. And so understanding withholding periods and ESIs and exports, make sure we are good at our end so we continue to grow those exports.
I think that you've talked about EID and it's just so important for market access that if you do nothing with EID, it's so important that we keep these diseases out and we're able to trace animals throughout their life.
Yeah. And me, I just... And I'll finish on this. EID is becoming mandatory next year in the sheep on a federal basis. And it's introduced by each of the states are doing their own, how it's been introduced. And there's a lot of criticism about the introduction of EID and it's been forced on industry. Remember this at the start that I was talking about I've got a lot of producers that been using EID for a long, commercial producers using EID for a long time when they haven't had to.
And we're identifying productivity. So what we are doing is turning EID from a cost into an investment and everyone has an opportunity to actually go, " Well, maybe there is something we can use it for." And now people know what they know and they know which animals stay and which animals go.
That's a great way to finish. Thanks Anthony. Thanks for your time today.
Absolute pleasure, Rohan. Good on you. Thank you.
Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you by Central West Local Land Services. Local Land Services delivers advice and support to farmers, landholders, and the community across New South Wales. To learn more, you can find us online by searching for Central West Local Land Services. If you'd like more information about the topics we discussed today, as well as links to relevant articles, fact sheets, events, and other helpful resources, we've added those into the show notes
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