By Dr Clive Dalton
Sheep as land developers
Up to the 1960s, New
Zealand sheep played a vital tool in converting native bush to productive pasture,
so performance levels and especially fertility were not considered major issues. The national ‘lambing percentage
(number of lambs docked/100 ewes to the ram) was around 90%, and if a farmer
got 100% then it was pleasing. One
good single lamb weaned per ewe was very satisfactory.
Things changed
drastically in the 1970s when pressure came on to increase flock numbers, along
with the drive to improve individual sheep performance and especially the
national lambing percentage. There
was no shortage of proposals from scientists and farmers alike at the time.
NFRS and Sheeplan
The first was to boost
stud flock performance through the National Flock Recording Scheme (NFRS)
started in 1967 by MAF and guided by Professor Al Rae and his students at
Massey College. This was updated
into Sheeplan in 1972, again by MAF and with plenty of input from stud breeders
and breed associations.
As a scientist at the
MAF Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station at the time, I acted as Technical
Coordinator for Sheeplan to get all interested parties together, and update the
scheme which was greatly helped by the arrival of the government’s first big IBM
mainframe computer at Trentham in Wellington. The computer was used to process farmers’
data, which was only a small part of the other government requirements for the
machine.
Sheeplan’s main
feature was the development of Breeding Values and Selection Indexes for
farmers sheep which they had never had before, and explaining all the new
information was handled by MAF’s Farm Advisory Officers (Animal Husbandry) and
Sheep and Beef Officers who serviced the country from each local MAF office.
Whatawhata breed comparison trial
My main role at
Whatawhata was to run our breed comparison trial as the Coopworth and Perendale
breeds had multiplied rapidly by the 1970s and their enthusiast promoters were
making great claims, but there were no data on the breeds’ performance compared
with the standard Romney bred on hard hill country.
We were careful to
start off with ‘good’ samples of 200 ewes of each breed approved by each breed
organisations, and from then on the flocks were self replacing from their
progeny reared at Whatawhata. This
was a vital feature of the trial, which didn’t happen in other breed comparison
trials.
Fertility in many flocks
In terms of improving
fertility, there was a lot going on at the time but looking back now, some of
it didn’t get the publicity is deserved.
Some did but others did not.
The Wallace Ruakura Fertility Flock
Dr Lyn Wallace was a
foundation scientist at the Ruakura research station and started selecting and
using twin rams for a number of generations in a small flock of Romneys.
Great progress was
shown and the overall fertility of the flock was a highlight of Ruakura’s work,
which was highlighted at Open Days and conferences. Neil Clarke carried on the work when Dr Wallace became MAF’s
Research Division director, and then it was terminated as other projects
claimed higher priority. But the
Wallace flock fertility genes were not offered nationally, and rams only went
to a few interested local breeders, so had no real impact on the national flock.
The Raglan Ward flock
This was a flock of
Romneys at Ruapuke near Raglan run by the Ward sisters. Like the Ruakura
Wallace flock, they had run a closed flock for many sheep generations by only
using their own twin rams, and clearly they had isolated a ‘big gene’ for
fertility.
At Whatawhata, the
director Dr Doug Lang and scientist Graeme Hight got some rams from the Wards
to use in the Whatawhata high fertility flock established in the 1970s from
twinning two-tooths identified and purchased from the Lands and Survey
Department at Waihora block near Taupo.
Contact with the Wards was not continued although the performance of the
sheep was greatly recognised by the Whatawhata scientists.
The Waihora Lands and Survey flock
This was a large
exercise started by Whatawhata staff who were allowed to go through the lambing
paddocks at the Waihora block and catch and tag two tooths that had produced a
good set of twins. Of those still
present at weaning, then 200 were purchased by MAF to start a high fertility
line at Whatawhata.
Lands and Survey took
up the concept to breed rams for themselves and it grew into a major business
as Lands and Survey eventually became the State Owned Enterprise (SOE) of Landcorp.
This exercise was one of the largest ‘Group Breeding’ schemes in the country
where over 100,000 ewes were screened each season.
Group Breeding Schemes (GBS)
In these schemes a
group of breeders (both stud and commercial) identified two tooth ewes under
‘easy care’ shepherding conditions that reared good lambs to weaning. These were then sent to a central flock
where they were mated to the top rams bred in the nucleus, and the next tier of
top rams were returned to the contributing flocks at an agreed ratio of usually
one ram for four contributed ewes.
These schemes had made
spectacular progress in all-round sheep performance for commercial environments,
and especially in fertility, and they produced sheep that farmers knew how to
manage and which fitted in with market demands.
The Invermay fertility flock
In the 1970s,
scientists at the Invermay Research Station near Dunedin led by Dr Jock Allison
asked farmers to donate any old ewes that had consistently weaned a minimum of
three sets of twins. Breed didn’t
matter and some amazing ewes were found which went on under Dr George Davis at
Invermay to eventually isolate some major genes for fertility. Farmers were delighted to donate their
ewes and the project had great potential and at very little cost. Sadly a business manager cancelled the
project and the flock was culled.
The Booroola Merino
We included a flock of
merino ewes in our breed comparison trial at Whatawhata but they were a
spectacular failure because of the wet conditions. My director Dr Doug Lang managed to get two Booroola rams
from Dr Helen Newton-Turner at CSIRO in Australia but by the time they arrived,
our Merinos were on the way out. Two
farmer brothers on the Booroola property in Australia had selected twins for
generations and had clearly isolated a major gene for fertility.
So we gave the rams to
Dr Jock Allison at Invermay research station to be used on their high country
merinos at Tara Hills, and from there they got on to local farms such as Haldon
Station in the McKenzie country where they made a major contribution to
improving fertility.
Conclusion from these flocks
The conclusion was very
clear. There was plenty fertility genes
in New Zealand in the 1970s to drive the revolution needed in the national
flock, and the strong point was that these were in breeds that New Zealand
farmers knew how to manage, and that produced wool the market accepted.
But this conclusion
seemed to have no major impact on the scientists who then urged MAF bureaucrats
and politicians to consider importing sheep from UK and Europe. The main argument put forward for
importing new breeds was that the exercise would produce faster results.
Importations
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| Purebred Finnish Landrace |
By the 1970s sheep researchers
around the world had discovered the Finnish Landrace sheep, which produced ‘litters’
of lambs with many individuals producing in excess of quads. These genes were seen as a guaranteed
and rapid way to improve the national lambing percentage through crossbreeding.
In New Zealand, scientists
at the Ruakura Research Centre’s Genetics Section led by Dr Alan Carter were
most enthusiastic for an importation of new breeds, and especially the Finn. So
they lobbied government over a long period, backed by their MAF Research
Division colleagues.
But Carter’s proposal
was not supported by the then Director of Animal Health, Scotsman Dr George
Adlam due to his concern over the risk of importing the slow virus disease
called Scrapie with the sheep. His concerns were also strongly supported by
Professor Neil Bruere of Massey University’s vet school.
But Carter never gave
up and when Adlam retired, along with other bureaucrat changes in MAF, an
importation of live sheep from UK (Finnish Landrace, East Friesian, Oxford Down
and German White Headed Mutton or Oldenburg) was organised to arrive in 1972,
and it certainly created both interest and concern from the different
interested parties. All the scientists involved were certainly excited about
the scientific papers that this work would produce, and farmer interest and
benefits from it.
Quarantine
The sheep arrived into
maximum quarantine on Soames Island in Wellington harbour, and then as they
multiplied moved to Mana Island near Wellington, with their progeny then moving
to Lands and Survey block at Crater near Rotorua. Sadly a Finn ewe developed scrapie on Mana so the all the
sheep were slaughtered and the land (Mana and Crater) banned from running sheep
ever again.
A second importation
of Finns along with Oxford Downs and Texels was imported as frozen embryos and
semen in 1990 and successfully completed quarantine via Somes island and
Hopuhopu farm near Huntly and were released to farmers though a joint MAF and
farmer investor company called Sheepac.
Fertility of the Finn F1
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There’s no doubt that the
Finn caused a spectacular increase in the national lambing percentage,
especially in the first cross, which was attributed to hybrid vigour. The F1
was just the average of both parents so if you mated a Finn with 300% lambing
to the 90% Romney – the average of 195% lambs born looked like hybrid vigour (positive heterosis) which it was not.
Unintended consequences
Looking back now at the
contribution of the Finn, there were some clear unintended consequences which
the enthusiasts at the time seem slow to admit now.
1.
As litter
size increased, lamb birth weight decreased which led to higher lamb mortality,
especially under the NZ traditional system of ‘easy care’ management.
2.
Rearing
extra lambs (triplets and quads) removed from the ewe was never economic
because of the price of milk replacer and the labour involved.
3.
These
smaller lambs from large litters were slow to grow and hence were on the farm
for longer adding extra cost in animal health, crutching, shearing, fly control
and dipping.
4.
The wool
of the Finn added no great advantage to the national wool clip. Some
enthusiasts claimed the extra lustre was of value and the wool trade didn’t
agree.
5.
The
carcass characteristics of the Finn added nothing of merit to the export meat
market.
One noted Cambridge
Coopworth breeder (Edward Dinger) who purchased Finns from Sheepac to
incorporate into his flock, as the Coopworth Society officially allowed adding
up to a quarter of Finn genes, now says that it was the worst decision he ever
made, due to most of the points made above.
Where is the Finn now?
Finn genes can now
only be found in composite breeds with a quarter Finn being the most you will
find. The wool trade never
welcomed them, although enthusiasts at the start claimed that the extra lustre
could be a good feature for some markets. It didn’t turn out that way.
Cost/benefits
It’s impossible to
work out the overall cost-benefit of importing the Finn, as no account has been
taken of the cost of both the 1970 and 1990 exotic sheep importations with the
Finn being a major driver for both.
Sheepac directors are
adamant that they as a company made money, but this again is invalid, as they
didn’t have to pay the importation costs.
The taxpayer paid! Sheepac
only bought the sheep off MAF and sold them, and MAF would have had no idea
about the cost.
As one of my former
colleagues said – nobody worried then or subsequently about the cost of the
importations’, as ‘it wasn’t real money’!
It was taxpayers’ money!
