Spring Valley’s breeding objectives alignment plan
Spring Valley Ent is a 2400ha sheep and beef breeding and finishing business in the Wairarapa. Comprising of 8100 ewes, 3200 hogget’s & 400 Angus breeding cows and replacements totaling 17000 su. We live by “Where Farming MEATS Efficiency".
Spring Valley has a high genetic merit and one of the most stable commercial Highlander® flocks in the country, with proven repeatable performance for over 16 years using Elite genetics.
Current situation
We put 4100 ewes to the Elite Highlander® for Spring Valleys own replacement flock, plus 4000 MA ewes and 3000 own replacement hoggets to Elite Highlander® for the propose of supplying a genetic commercial ewe lamb replacement to buyers chasing high performance ewe flocks with records.
All animals are tracked and monitored using EID and FarmIQ and follow a stringent animal health program.
This is our fifth year of mating 4000 MA Highlander ewes and 3200 Highlander hogget’s with Elite genetics and supplying 80% of the top line genetic ewe lambs at weaning & in the autumn to the industry.
Our current performance from these MA ewes is scanning 207% and have an average docking of 160%, weaning an average 35kg at 90 days. Last year we docked 178% in the MA and 168% in 2 tooth’s to the ram.
Hoggets are regularly performing well, scanning up to 145% and docking over 100%
These two flocks combined should yield us 4800 Highlander® ewe lambs *80% = 3900 Highlander®ewe lambs available for sale. The remaining ewe and ram lambs stay with us to fatten to sale.
With have used of genetic mapping within our flock, we are chasing -in this order and are looking at DNA genomics for the next step like we do in our cattle.
Survivability
Carcass confirmation and yield
Conversion efficiency
IMF
Longevity
Wool quality
Hogget reproduction
Fecundity (we already have a high level)
Trust us with your future genetics and let every farm play towards their strength.
Spring Valley’s breeding objectives alignment plan
TESTIMONIALS
“I have been using Wyeth Highlander ewe lambs since 2022. As hoggets the first line scanned at 145% and lambed at 120%, and as MA ewes now at Puke Te, Masterton, they lead the scanning and lambing of the terminal ewes, scanning 20% higher than the traditional ewes.
They are a good way of leveraging off the successful flock at the Wyeths and quickly having an impact on your own flock results. There is much merit in a terminal system, the starting point is a productive ewe that is efficient in both intake (no flushing required at mating - thus saving winter feed) and production - kgs of lamb weaning against the ewe.
Obviously young stock needs to be grown out well, but based on good stockmanship, these ewe lambs will deliver.”
Damien Reynolds – Tōtaranui Stud
“We have been buying Spring Valley highlander genetics for 2 years now. Our 2 tooth scanning lifted 12% in the first year and our hogget scanning was very strong at 154%.
We put them to a terminal sire and are really happy with the lambs that we are seeing hit the ground.
We are also very pleased with the feed efficiency and maternal mothering ability of these sheep and will continue to buy them.”