Runing Mount Ronan White Suffolk and maternal studs on 1000ha
DECADES of data collection have positioned this White Suffolk stud at the top of the chops, writes NICOLA BELL.
THE anticipation of what’s going to crop up in the next lamb drop drives Guy Bowen’s passion for breeding sheep.
But it was a strong focus on performance recording and profit that initially helped him develop one of Australia’s most successful White Suffolk studs.
Guy and wife Joanne run Mount Ronan White Suffolks and Maternals, comprising 950 ewes, on 1000ha at York, about 80km east of Perth in Western Australia.
GUY AND JOANNE BOWEN
YORK, WESTERN AUSTRALIA
RUNS the Mount Ronan White Suffolk and maternal studs on 1000ha
STUDS comprise 950 registered ewes
STRONG focus on performance recording and profit traits
SELL up to 400 rams a year
Guy has been breeding and recording commercial sheep since the age of 13. Three years later, in 1968, he registered his first stud breeding flock following the purchase of some Shropshire stud ewes. They were offloaded a year later when he purchased Suffolk ewes to establish what would later become the largest registered Suffolk flock in Australia.
In 1989, Guy started a breeding program to develop a White Suffolk flock by purchasing Poll Dorset ewes and using selected Poll Dorset rams.
The first graded White Suffolk rams from Mount Ronan sold at the 1991 Northam ram sale for an Australasian record flock ram price of $910 — three times — and the 11 rams offered averaged $777. Average flock ram prices at the time were $200-$250.
As well as the White Suffolks, the Bowens started a specialist maternal breeding program in 2003. It initially involved a large embryo-transfer program, which introduced new genetics consisting of a four-way cross of Border Leicester, Finn, Texel and East Friesian.
Guy said his aim was to breed hardy, muscular White Suffolk ewes and maternals that produced fast growing, high yielding lambs.
“We are not strictly breed oriented, we produce sheep that will perform well under a range of conditions and to produce profitable prime lambs,” Guy said.
STICKY BEAK
MOUNT Ronan was also home to a commercial egg farm until 2008 and Guy said his experience with poultry taught him the value of genetic selection.
“Poultry leads the world in performance and the meat-sheep industry has been progressive but not to the degree it could be,” he said.
“Our breeding program has always been focused on identifying genetically outstanding females.
“They are always there in the population but it’s just a case of identifying them, because unless you observe and record you won’t be able to identify them.”
These highly proven females with outstanding commercial performance are the cornerstone of the program at Mount Ronan and it’s these ewes that are flushed for their embryos.
Guy said when “outstanding females” were identified you could substantiate their value. The Bowens have been doing this with Lambplan since it was initiated in the 1990s.
“We measured everything and compiled data ... it was a breath of fresh air, because up to that point the only benchmarks were feedback from commercial clients and how individual sheep perform in the flock,” he said.
Guy also uses genomic testing on ET ewes and young sires to get an idea of the anticipated value of various traits, such as meat-eating quality and tenderness.
“It assists in selection of animals with high merit ... it’s pretty powerful,” he said.
HARDY YARDS
THE stud aims to produce genetically hardy, athletic, vigorous sheep that are naturally independent pasture foragers with exceptional fertility and lambing ease, longevity and good mothers.
“The objective is to identify animals that possess superior genes for traits that will maximise returns to the commercial lamb producer,” Guy said.
“One of our clients in NSW scanned 2000 adult ewes and got 204 per cent without drug assistance, which is a phenomenal result,” Guy said.
The relationship between Mount Ronan and its producer clients is critical. Three years ago Guy said they formed the Mount Ronan Specialist Prime Lamb Producer Group to enhance two-way information flow.
Guy said the sheep are run commercially and only supplementary fed during dry conditions.
Each year 120-150 ewes are artificially inseminated, while the rest are naturally mated, usually to ram lambs from the Mount Ronan program.
Some years the top ewes are flushed for embryos. Guy said sometimes they flushed six ewes, other times none. For the AI and ET programs, Guy said they bought in semen from highly proven sires.
Adult sheep are run in large mobs except when being prepared for mating or during lambing.
With an average annual rainfall of 490mm and a relatively short winter, Guy said ewes learned to do well on the short pasture growing phase between June and October and then consumed dry pasture during summer and autumn.
WINTER WONDER
LAMBING is from mid-July, so the best 100-day window of pasture can be used.
To ensure accurate Australian Sheep Breeding Values, lambs are caught at birth and identified to their sire and dam. They are ear tagged, birth weighed and the temperament of the ewe is recorded. Any poor mothering skills, lambing difficulties, teat or udder problems, or poor constitutional characteristics are also noted.
At weaning, at about 100 days, lambs are weighed again, and then at about 200 days, muscle and fat scanning takes place.
The Bowens have always recorded the mothering ability of the ewes, including lamb awareness, temperament and general maternal behaviour.
With the help of their daughter Elise Bowen, they started researching individual ewe efficiency in the Mount Ronan flock a few years ago.
Research is now focusing on individual ewe resilience.
“We are recording the kilograms of lamb produced by each ewe, relative to her own mating weight in a 100-day period post lambing,” Guy said.
“It’s a tool to identify elite performing females from a production and profitability perspective.”
In 1997 Mount Ronan held its first on-property ram sale, with full ASBV information and pedigree data. They now hold a spring and a summer ram sale with 300 to 400 rams a year sold to clients across Western Australia as well as to the NSW Riverina. This year’s summer ram lamb sale averaged $1048 for 72 offered and sold.
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