General News
14 January, 2023
Genetics of success
SUMMER READINGBy CHRIS EARLTHE Terrick West Poll Merino Stud at Prairie West is stringing together successes. While still celebrating the stud’s best-ever Australian Sheep and Wool Show result, Ross McGauchie also looks back on 2021 as the year...
SUMMER READING
By CHRIS EARL
THE Terrick West Poll Merino Stud at Prairie West is stringing together successes.
While still celebrating the stud’s best-ever Australian Sheep and Wool Show result, Ross McGauchie also looks back on 2021 as the year that saw the family’s Terrick West Merino Stud with its best ever three rams.
Two were sold for eye-watering prices to buyers wanting genetics from the Prairie West stud, one ram has been retained on property and the McGauchies also have semen rights for the stud stars as the family’s third and fourth generations enter a 90th year producing quality sheep in the northern Loddon Valley plains, once a Victorian dairying epicentre.
Originally pencilled in for the Adelaide ram sales, lockdowns and border restrictions instead saw the sires sold privately.
“Martin” sold for $30,000 to Glenpaen Merino and Poll Merino Stud in a deal inked at the Victorian Merino Field Day at Marnoo.
Ross said: “He is a terrific sheep. Structurally he is a very good ‘modern Merino’ with a great carcass and high quality wool. It’s really good that people have confidence in our sheep.”
Confidence of buyers in Terrick West’s progeny continued soon after the private sale of Hay Show 2021 champion March shorn ram “Kiwi” for $20,000 to Victoria’s Kilcoolin Holdings.
“It’s very humbling and satisfying to get that recognition from other breeders for what we do and the Merino genetics we invest in … it’s real, not made up, recognition within the industry,” Ross said.
Martin, Kiwi and brother Marshall were taken to Apiam in Deniliquin last September for semen collection.
Ross said the stud had produced some good sheep since his grandparents established the stud in 1933 and settled at Prairie West in 1948.
“There have been some good sheep in the past … our grandparents main objective was to keep improving every year,” he said.
“We believe this trio of rams sired from Wallaloo Park 60 are the best rams that we have bred at Terrick West and are excited to see what they produce.
“To have two rams in the selling bracket achieved last year was certainly pleasing.”
He said the stud’s sheep today were “bigger, plainer and more fertile”.
“As an industry we are demanding that type of sheep. The big folds of the neck are long gone,” Ross said.
“Rather than just look at them as wool producers, we consider the whole sheep and this shows just how terrific the Merino is producing meat and wool.”
Ross said embryo transfer was making a difference to the stud’s performance with the aim of between 10 and 20 lambs from every ewe.
“The emphasis was also on the rams but we now possibly place as much importance on ewes for breeding,” he said.
“The ‘blokes’ with the best ewes will then produce the best rams. This also gives stability for studs and the industry and more value to the females.”
Semen sales were giving smaller studs and producers across Australia access to genetics “whereas it used to be that the big studs would keep the good rams to themselves”.
“Small studs didn’t have access to those genetics but the field is much more even now and that has brought benefits right across the industry,” he said.
“And semen sales are very good, enabling us to sell the rams and keep the semen that you then see out in the paddock again.”
Ross said he started buying semen for use in the Terrick West stud 20 years ago. “If they breed well we have sons, if not we move on.”
Terrick West was introduced to semen collection in the early 1980s when Ross met Roger Carmony at the AI centre in Tongala.
“We’ve been doing it ever since in the last week of November before the real warm days start. There can be some challenges trying to synchronise 400 ewes in one day. The key is well and truly in the timing.”
On today’s flock, Ross said: “Young Terrick West sires consistently produce high volumes of soft handling, deep-crimping wool in the 17-19 micron range with high comfort factors – on frames weighing over 100kg still with their lambs teeth.
“This balance is reflected in our flock, where average micron over the last three years has fallen below 19 (18.2 in 2020) and our mature animals average more than 8kg of wool production each year.
“Terrick West’s large-framed and plain-bodied sires are also critical for many of our clients joining ewes to Border Leicesters and other terminal sires – where Terrick West’s consistently bulky and deep-crimping wool ensures ongoing wool clip value in addition to profitable meat production.”
Ross said the Loddon Valley’s reputation as a sheep producing district reflected “a great love and understanding of the industry” by local studs.
“It’s no secret that the best studs congregate in an area – around Marnoo, the Riverina and this area,” he said. “The success of studs encourages others.”
While Terrick West celebrated with a trio of star rams in 2021, there’s the passion of another trio that drives the successes for the stud at shows, sales and auctions. Ross has at his side wife Robyn and daughter Claire in maintaining flock standard and pushing genetic improvement in the progeny.
“Claire is a really good judge and was the one who made us look at the quality of our ewes as well that has helped our breeding,” he said.
“We need young people in the industry … the next generation building on what we have today.
“My grandfather, father and uncle started the stud back in 1933 and I know they would be proud of the sheep we breed today, building on the work they did.”
And if 2021 saw Terrick West stud with its best ever three rams, the weekend’s Australian Sheep and Wool Show confirmed that Ross, Robyn and Claire put forward their top genetic rams and returned home with their best ever results at the nation’s premier Merino competition.
* This article was first published in the 2022 Victorian Merino Studbreeders’ Association Yearbook.