Head Shepherd

Today we discuss the bigger part of how you make money on the farm - how well you feed the animals. Nutrition of your livestock is one thing that you can get right, or wrong, on a daily basis; genetics is a longer burn. With nutrition, you can see the results almost immediately. To discuss this, our guest this week is Charlotte Westwood. Charlotte got her vet degree from Massey University and spen...

Do you want to develop your understanding of estimated breeding values (EBVs) in cattle? This week's podcast guest, Tom Gubbins, and our host Mark Ferguson chat about breeding values and Te Mania Angus, giving us a great insight into the role of genetics in a farm business. Te Mania started in New Zealand in 1928 with the closing of the Angus herd book. They have been involved in genetics fro...

In this podcast, we sit down with Rick, a seasoned farmer whose parents moved to his family farm in the 70s as a child,  as part of the family's succession plan. Rick now runs a self-replacing composite flock, focusing on early maturity, fat, muscle, and health traits such as worm resistance. Rick also sheds light on his involvement in the Farm Owners Academy as an accountability coach and ho...

This week, our guest is Ben Todhunter from Cleardale Station in Canterbury NZ.  Ben's grandfather purchased Cleardale in 1943 and is named after its geographical "snow shelter" attributes. Cleardale is only 4 km from Mount Hutt as the crow flies.  Stud breeding is in Ben's genetics, with his great grandfather founding the Blackford stud in 1924. In Ben's time, they had a t...

Join us today for a chat through Richard Rains's career of 40 years of selling meat around the world. "It became a great passion and I still pinch myself every day at the success a little kid from the bush was able to achieve."  Richard grew up in central NSW and was the youngest of four kids. When it was his turn to return to the farm, his father said to him, "Things aren&apos...

Are you optimising your farm's production? Today we have John Young, aka Youngy, on the podcast. There are so many ways to optimise your farming business and sometimes that can be overwhelming. John, however, makes it all sound very understandable and achievable. John's background is in farming but he now runs a systems analysis service.  Farm Systems Analysis Service has been involved i...

Integrated pest management for blowfly, worms and lice is the topic of todays podcast, with our guest Alison Colvin.  Alison has published work on practices on farm and has also been involved in a lot of survey work. You can find more here Alison runs us through the surveys, which had some interesting results about incidences of flystrike, treatment trends and the effects of drought on lice, fly a...

One of the main topics of today’s podcast is the financial modelling of transitioning to a shedding flock from a Romney our guest, Prof. Paul Kenyon of Massey University, has been involved with. Mark asks what instigated the work and what does the modelling show? "In reality, coarse wool is costing more to get it off. Many farmers spend their whole summer shearing, crutching, dagging, dipping...

As producers, you're always wanting to get the most for your hard earned produce and it always helps when your processor wants that for you, too. Located mid-way between Sydney and Melbourne, Gundagai Meat Processors (GMP) is one of the most innovative lamb processors in Australia. GMP became a household name within the industry as they were the first to offer premiums for IMF. This week we h...

Every day, we make hundreds of decisions. These decisions affect you, your business and those around you. This week we have Kate Burke on the podcast talking about how to make the right decisions. With 26 years of experience behind her, Kate has a huge range of expertise in the Agriculture industry. Kates principles come from her experience in the industry as an agronomist, an educator, researcher...

This week we have an old supervisor of Marks, Graham Gardener as our guest. Graham has been involved in a huge multi species project (ALMTECH) focusing on measuring lean meat yield and eating quality for the past 7 years. You can find out more about it here: https://www.almtechau.com/ Mark and Graham start off with the work ALMTECH have been doing on live animal measurements in terms of lean meat...

Bio shearing, wool harvesting practices and Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) research is the topic of this week's podcast. We have Jock Laurie, chair of AWI chatting with Mark today. Jock currently farms wool, lamb, beef and grain on properties in New South Wales. In 2021 Jock became chair of AWI. Jock runs us through what AWI does, and what they're currently looking into it. AWI, for th...

Today on the podcast we have a different kind of guest! We have the incredible Dr. Roswitha Baumung who currently works at the Division for Animal Production and Health of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Roswitha has always had a passion for animals. She studied Agriculture and completing her pHD on Animal breeding and genetics.  "I was especially interested...

It is always interesting to compare different farming systems across this world. This week on the podcast we have Dr Tim Keady speaking about farming in Ireland. Having recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, Tim has a great insight at how the different systems compare. "We went to see the use of different technologies on-farm, with the intention of reducing labour and improving efficie...

If you can optimise your stocking rate for your season, there's no reason you can't make profit in livestock. However, accessing capital for trading and breeding stock, isn't always easy and can hold a producer back.  That's where Richard Brimblecombe and Legacy Livestock come in. Richard is a "Queenslander through and through" who always had a hankering for numbers....

Want to know more about sheep parasites? This week we have Ginny Dodunski on the podcast chatting about everything from drenches and capsules, to resistance and refugia. This podcast is full of handy, helpful tips, which will hopefully make you take a step back and look at your worm management programme on farm. In the last 12 months, Ginny has been the Wormwise programme manager but, prior to tha...

This week we are discussing markets and were lucky to secure some time with Matt Dalgleish to talk through the current markets and current trends.  Matt has a wealth of experience in livestock markets. Matt works with Andrew Whitelaw and together they have founded Episode 3 to provide market analytics.  You can find out more about their work at Episode 3   They began working together in commodity...

This week we bring you Ferg's thoughts on innovation and particularly the role Artificial Intelligence will play in livestock farming in the future.   The uptake of innovations in livestock breeding in the last 20 years is about to go into over drive and we are on the cusp of big changes in how sheep breeding happens across the industry.  There will be two options for those breeders out there...

Mark Wragg transitioned from Romney ewes to a finer wool cross three years ago. Today he chats to Mark Ferguson about that process and also about the introduction of a White Suffolk stud to their business. After attending a NZM workshop a few years ago Cheviot, which Mark Ferguson spoke at, Mark Wragg decided to make the jump into transitioning to finer wool genotype. "A long time ago they tr...

 This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have another senior scientist of AgResearch, Tricia Johnson. Following on from our podcast with Dr Suzanne Rowe on "Genetic selection for lower methane in ruminants", we invited Tricia on to focus on her research in one of Marks favourite topics, feed efficiency and body composition. Tricia has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to sheep phenot...

This week on the podcast, we have the wonderful Prue Bondfield. Prue didn't have a traditional pathway into agriculture. 'In terms of the beef industry, my association there started when I got married to my husband, who owned a Charolais stud. I was a lawyer in Brisbane, Queensland,' says Prue. 'It was really city meets country in the best way.' From the time David and Pru...

This week we have a fantastic podcast for you discussing a very hot topic, Methane emissions in ruminants. We have Dr Suzanne Rowe, Senior Scientist at AgResearch talking about the history of recording methane in sheep, what the industry is currently doing towards reducing methane emissions and where the future of methane in sheep is heading. Dr Rowe was born and raised in the UK, studied Agricult...

This week we have another episode in our "Ferg's Thoughts" series. Seeing as it's the start of a new year, Mark chats about what we can achieve in the future.  "How can we set ourselves up for success in 2023?" Mark asks  "We always think back to that 30 years, depending on where you are in your farming cycle. That '30' being the number of times you get...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have our freshest recruit, James Lines. After only 9 days on the job, Mark got James onto the head shepherd podcast to talk about his upbringing and what lead to him applying for a job at a genetics consultancy firm. James grew up on a mixed farming enterprise, which also had the Gum Hills Merinos stud and south Devon cattle. After a 'gap year' w...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast, we're changing gears a little and chatting with author Michelle Scott Tucker. Having an audience of mostly sheep tragics, Mark thought the parallels between Michelles book, Elizabeth Macarthur: a life at the edge of the world; and our listeners was too good not to make the most of. Michelle tells us more about the wonderful Elizabeth Macarthur and the f...