Abstract

in recent years, sheep farmers have embraced farm and flock monitoring as techniques to increase the profit-ability of their business. Clutha Farms 2000 (CF 2000) was established in South Otago to enable sheep farmers to monitor the performance of their farms. The standard re-cording format applied to each member’s farm has been the basis of benchmarking, whereby each member can com-pare their farm’s performance against that of other mem-bers farming in a similar environment. The early success of the scheme has encouraged other regions to set up simi-lar schemes and an umbrella organisation, FT 2000, has been formed to co-ordinate and encourage new groups throughout New Zealand. Ultrasonic pregnancy scanning as a quick and reli-able technique for identifying the number of foetuses car-ried by each ewe has opened new opportunities for the management of breeding flocks. The ability to separate mobs of ewes according to their pregnancy status has al-lowed farmers to run multiple-bearing ewes with greater confidence. Pregnancy scanning has also improved the monitoring of flock performance by highlighting losses between mid-pregnancy and tailing. For farmers who were previously unaware of the magnitude of their neonatal lamb mortality, the capacity to accurately measure this loss has motivated them to make greater effort to improve lamb sur-vival. An index relating scanning percentage to mating liveweight has been a useful basis for benchmarking flock prolificacy. This contract draws on the experiences of those who had a pioneering role in establishing farm and flock moni-toring, those who in various ways provide monitoring serv-ices, and farmers who use and benefit from monitoring. In keeping with the location of this year’s annual conference, the contract has a heavy southern bias, but as farm and flock monitoring are becoming increasingly available through-out New Zealand there is the potential to significantly im-prove the production and profitability of the entire sheep industry.

GH, Davis

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 59, , 76, 1999