Head Shepherd

Wallaloo Park is a family-owned and managed business located south of Marnoo in the Wimmera district of Victoria. The business operates a 3500ha mixed enterprise farming system, including cropping and livestock enterprises. Wallaloo Park merino stud was founded in 1978, currently running 2500 ewes.  Utilizing the latest technology to enhance genetic gain, through both ASBV’s and stringent visual c...

We are delighted to have had the chance to catch up with Laura Ryan. Laura is the founder and global Chair of Meat Business Women which launched in 2015. With a first-class Honours in Marketing and a Masters in Management, Laura joined the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) in 2007. Successfully launching premium beef & lamb brands within a large butchery business in the Nor...

Richard Loe, a former All Blacks player with a passion for livestock joined us this week on the Head Shepherd Podcast. Loe's family farm, Glenloe is based near Oxford in Canterbury in the centre of the South Island of New Zealand.  Richard is farming Dohne Merino Sheep and Santa Gertrudis Cattle. Richard is a co-host of Magic Radio's Rural Exchange program which airs every Saturday and S...

Sophie and Lucy, who grew up at Middlehurst Station for the past 20 years, have had the absolute privilege of bringing Middlehurst Delivered to life. Bringing a premium product that you can enjoy at home, knowing exactly where it came from. Middlehurst Delivered aims to have consistency with their meat and to always give that "great experience". It doesn't stop there, Middlehurst is...

The Luhrs family farm near Cavendish in Western Victoria.  Ricky and his wife Marni farm with Russell, Ricky's dad.  They have two speeds, flat out and asleep.  They are always thinking about extracting the next few percent out of the business through strategic management, pasture performance and genetics.   If what they need doesn't exist on the market they build it.  I'm sure you&...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast Mark speaks with Brendon Savage from Western Australia. Brendon has a great insight on soils and pasture after spending the past few years improving his pastures via various, slightly different methods with the goal of producing the same, with less. Brendon also upped his sheep numbers to take his business to 50:50 crop to sheep which isn't common in the...

Welcome back to the Head Shepherd podcast. This week we have Todd Burger from the Western Districts of Victoria. Todd farms his merino sheep a little differently. After being frustrated with the lack of maternal behavior in his ewes, he decided to do something different. Todd intensively manages around 700 of his 7,000 ewes around lambing time. This means shedding up at night, temporary shelters a...

Welcome back to Season 4 of the Head Shepherd podcast! We'd like to say thank you for all of your support in the past and we cannot wait to share this season's guests with you. This week, we start things off with a bang. Mark chats with Bill Malcolm who has been a professor at Melbourne University since 1980. Mark actually grew up close to Bill in the Mallee, and Bill also taught Mark ec...

For our final episode of Season 3, we are excited to discuss Genesmith,  a startup within neXtgen Agri. Mark catches up with Ian Harris, Electronics and Data Science Manager at neXtgen Agri who, along side Ali Alqassab and Jack Zarifeh, are developing facial recognition cameras to apply the power of machine learning to the livestock industry.  We are starting with matching lambs and ewes, in the p...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast, we decided to offer the mic over to you to answer your questions. We put a call out on various social media platforms and we had a great response. We had lots of questions ranging from wool vs shedding sheep, to the use of AI and Face Recognition in farming. It is always great to hear Marks opinion on these things and as ever, it's a podcast to get you...

Mark first came across Moojepin Merinos, a Merino stud near Badgebup in the Great Southern Region of Western Australia, fifteen years ago whilst looking for some high growth merinos. This week, Mark discusses what's going on at Moojepin with Hamish Thompson, stud co-principal and third generation on the farm. After Hamish's father David Thompson, was told joining merino ewe lambs was imp...

Julia Jones shares her optimistic outlook on the future of the Agriculture industry this week. Julia grew up on the West Coast of the South Island of NZ, riding a horse to school. Now, Julia is head of Analytics at NZX, New Zealand's Exchange. With an infectious, positive view on life, Julia covers what she sees happening in the future of our industry, and the world.   A big thank you to our...

This week, Mark catches up with Chad Taylor of Mumblebone Merinos, of Wellington, NSW, Australia. Both Chad and Mark are fans of putting maternal traits with carcass traits on a wool producing animal. They discuss the benefits of putting fat and muscle in a Merino and how it has improved both Mumblebone's production, and also their clients. They also cover succession and where Mark and Chad t...

On this episode of the Head Shepherd podcast, Mark catches up with Georgina Gubbins. Georgina is not only a passionate red meat producer, but is also chair of Lambex and Great South Coast Food and Fibre. We discuss the future of Lambex, the need for new entrants in agriculture and also run through Georginas farming business focusing on giving the consumer a healthy satisifying eating experience. G...

Hunter McGregor gives us a great insight to the Chinese meat market this week. Hunter has been in China for fourteen years and now runs a New Zealand Venison import and distribution business. He has a fascinating insight into the cultural diversity when it comes to food in China and how they perceive Australian and New Zealand red meat. A great podcast this week with something a little different....

This week, Mark catches up with Jill Hill of Benambra.   After following her fathers footsteps to rowing, Jill reached the World Championships in Greece, 1998, returning home with a gold medal in the lightweight double skull. Jill then went on to nationals in mountain biking.  After her stint in sports, Jill practiced as a physiotherapist, before returning home to the family farm in 2017. By intro...

This week Mark catches up with Tony, Elise and Bernie Kealy of Curlew Merinos, Edenhope, Victoria.  The Kealys are a great example of successfully navigating the tensions of business and family being intertwined.  Their story is also a great example of how to involve the next generation in the business at a relatively young age.    We cover how they run their successful enterprise as individuals b...

Lachlan Campbell is the CEO and co-founder of ProAgni, their moto is “Improving Farm economics today. Ensuring farming’s sustainability tomorrow." How are they doing this?  Well, it started with the realisation that Kangaroos don't burp methane.  From a few bags of product in Dubbo to a national distribution network and now breaking into the huge lot feeding industry in the US, ProAgni h...

This week we hear from Andrew and Jamie Heinrich of Ella Matta, the first registered White Suffolk stud in the world. Based on Kangaroo Island, which suffered a devastating fire just over 12 months ago, Andew and Jamie discuss the impacts of that on both them and their community, the start of the White Suffolk breed and the work they are doing to make their sheep work for them- not the other way a...

Welcome back to the start of Season 3 of the Head Shepherd Podcast! Our first guest this week is Jana Hocken. Jana is a Lean consultant with more than 17 years’ experience working for Toyota and in Lean consulting. Since 2013, she has also been involved in supporting her husband’s 1000-head dairy farm in New Zealand, introducing Lean thinking to the business. She developed and rolled out the succe...

Bonus Episode! Today we're quickly catching up with Steve Cotton, founder of Dynamic Ag. We discuss his PhD in internal parasites, starting up his business in 2015 and also Steve explains what he will cover in his session, "World of Worms" in our upcoming course, Growing Ewe. If you want to sign up to, or find out more about our Growing Ewe course, follow the link below. www.nextgen...

In this episode we feature the role of EID in making more informed decisions within a sheep business.  We hear from Steve Kelly, Commercial Manager at Allflex NZ as well as Charles Douglas-Clifford who farms at Stonyhurst in North Canterbury.  Stonyhurst have been using EID in their sheep operation for over 15 years and have learnt a lot along the way.  You can see some great pictures of Stonyhurs...

"Why cant we have $140 cutlets?" Tom Bull speaks to Mark this week about the future of the sheep meat industry and how LambPro is hoping to achieve this astounding figure by the middle of this year. This is a fascinating chat, considering LambPro lambs contribute to over 1,000,000 lambs in the Australian market. Tom discusses branding and working with clients to achieve common goals. htt...

This week I had a conversation with Rob Hewett, a man who is involved in the primary industries at many levels: production, processing, exporting and education.  It is fascinating to hear his 'helicopter' perspective of these businesses and his view of the future of the primary industries in New Zealand.  A recurring theme is how carbon is shaping the discussions in boardrooms all around...

This week we caught up with Sandi Brock of Ontario, Canada. Sandi walks us through her indoor sheep production system, explains why and how she became Youtube's most popular sheep farmer, and also touches on the publics perception of agriculture in Canada. Check out Sandi's website https://sheepishlyme.com/ A big thank you to our sponsors, Allflex Livestock Intelligence https://www.allfl...