Shane Hurley
SHANE HURLEY
“The survivability of our lambs compared with 10 years ago is incredible – and we have lots more lambs.
We used to have traditional romneys, ranging from 80 – 85kg, and we struggled to get 110% lambing. We tried rams from everywhere and never really made any progress.
With Kelso we’ve got to 130% and we have 150% in our sights. But just as importantly we can budget on lambs of 20kg on the hook – I’ve been able to say goodbye to the sales yards.
We’ve had the worst winter I can recall – virtually no grass at all in the autumn. Despite that the local vet said we scanned 15 to 20% above the norm – I’m pretty happy with that.
The Kelso’s double MyoMAX gene is really important to me. We recently bought 400 acres of flats to give balance with the 1700 acres of hill country and it’s allowing our lambs to reach their full potential – the gene plays a big part in that.
The hill country is in 300 acre paddocks and we set stock. We’re finding it easier to manage the Kelso sheep – they seem to work better for dogs and are more mob-oriented. I hadn’t expected this, and it’s been a real bonus.
This is a sheep that works well for me as a hill country farmer, and on the flats.”