Head Shepherd

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we are discussing employment in the Ag sector. Mark chats with John Boote, CEO of Drover Ag, specialists in Ag recruitment. John has been involved in Agriculture his entire life working his way up through senior management roles. He'd always seen recruitment as a major issues in the Agricultural Industry.  To solve that problem, three years ago, he start...

This week on the podcast we have Nathan Scott. With a background in Prime Lamb production, Nathan started his own consultancy firm, Achieve Ag Solutions, eight years ago.    "We work with a range of producers, looking for the low hanging fruit within their business and applying the latest science and technology, in a practical way that means something to their business" Nathan is passion...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have a guest from our recent event, the neXtgen Agri Muster. Tom Fraser is a scientist at AgResearch.  Tom spoke at the Muster about pasture allocation and making the most of your genetics. It was such a great talk, we decided to get Tom on the podcast to share the knowledge with our podcast listeners.  Tom underlines the importance of body condition scori...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Rob Bell, co-founder and CTO at ProAgni and CEO and Principal Consultant at Formula Ag. In this episode, we're focusing on weaning, a process not too far away in parts of Australia. Rob initially started off as an agronomist in the cotton industry but the droughts soon led to a change of career. One thing that really struck him was that, regardle...

Welcome back to season 8 of the Head Shepherd podcast. As ever, we're starting off with a bang and have the fantastic Julie McDonald as our first guest. Julie is the CFO of McDonalds Holdings- 3.36 million hectares based in Queensland Australia. Julie credits many things to the success of such a large scale enterprise but one of the defining reasons is the intergenerational knowledge. Having...

We are currently busily recording season 8 of the podcast.  While we do that we thought we would share with you one of the podcasts from the private podcast we run within The Hub - Head Shepherd Radio.  Ferg has been recording a breeding series and this week we are sharing one of those with you.   We are sharing the reproduction episode from the breeding series this week and Ferg goes through the...

This week is our season finale of Season 7 of the Head Shepherd podcast. As ever, we asked our listeners if they had any questions for Mark Ferguson to answer. Mark covers questions such as:  "Are the commercial farmers still planning to invest similar this up coming ram selling season in Australia, at the same level they have in previous years?  Is there any uncertainty in higher interest ra...

This week on the podcast we have Sophie Barnes- sheep fan and producer of the Head Shepherd Podcast. Sophie isn't from a farming background but is now one of the biggest fans of sheep you could find. Sophie came across farming when she was 18 and has been hooked ever since. Sophie moved to New Zealand seven years ago for a "two year trip".  Sophie runs through her time here in New Z...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Sally Murfet of Inspire Ag.  Sally is a farmer's daughter born and raised in northwest Tasmania on a farm producing beef cattle and seed potatoes. Sally established Inspire Ag after seeing a gap in the support system for the agriculture industry. There was no one helping farmers increase business performance through human capital. 'If you ha...

In this episode we are providing a recording of Associate Professor Andrew Thompson from Murdoch University.  Thommo, as he is better known, presented this talk at workshops in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.  There are loads of tips in here and I'm sure you are going to enjoy the depth of knowledge that this man has. The workshops were for an MLA funded project that involves d...

We started this podcast with three episodes of Ferg sharing his perspective about genetics. We thought it was time to hear more of his thoughts, a couple of years on.  Whether you breed sheep, cattle or goats, this episode provides you with guidance and tips on setting a breeding objective (or genetic plan) and then implementing strategies to put the plan into action. It refers to a genetic planni...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Ross Richards of Romani Farms, Taumarunui, New Zealand. Ross farms in a fairly challenging environment. With warm muggy summers and paddocks surrounded by native bush it is hard to produce good wool even on the best of years. Facial eczema has always been around but with the warmer winters we've had recently the spore counts are getting worse. Ro...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Monica Ebert. Monica has been involved with sheep her entire life. She grew up on a stud farm in North East Kansas, USA breeding and showing British Downs Breeds.  The passion for wool came a little later after Monica studied Fashion Design and Marketing at University. This is where she started to see the link between fashion and fibre. She decided sh...

This week on the podcast we have Robin Smith, a Product Design Engineer and creator of Numnuts . Numnuts is a device that simultaneously castrates or tails a lamb whilst also administering pain relief. Robin is originally from a family of sheep vets: "You end up back in the flock as you get older," and the Numnuts story began when Robin's father developed a vaccine for barber's...

This week on the Head Shepherd Podcast we have Dayanne Almeida aka The Sheep Nutter. Dayanne isn't from a farming background, but through her Animal Science degree in her home country Brazil, she fell in love with sheep. Once she'd finished her degree she began to work for sheep breeders associations in her home country then one day, Dayannes friend suggested she travel to New Zealand to...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have  St John Craner, rural sales and marketing trainer, owner of Agrarian and Kellogg scholar. The podcast this week takes a step sideways from our usual content. St John specialises in rural sales and the psychology behind it. His company, Agrarian, offers in person and online training programmes where they help agribusiness grow using digital strategies...

In this week's episode, Mark catches up with the three co-founders of Hemprino™; Siobhan O'Malley, Paul Ensor and Harriet Bell. As the name suggests, Hemprino™ is a luxurious blend of the two heritage fibres; hemp and merino wool. The trio met as Kellogg Rural Leadership Scholars and share a huge passion for innovation and challenging the way we operate. The Hemprino™ journey began in 20...

This week on the Head Shepherd Podcast, Mark catches up with a long-term colleague and friend, Darren Gordon. Darren is a sheep nutrition and breeding consultant for neXtgen Agri, based near Dunkeld in Victoria. The pair spent several years working together, researching and collating data for the Department of Primary Industries, which later went on to form the foundation of the Lifetime Ewe Manag...

Welcome back to the Head Shepherd Podcast! To kick off season 7, we have the wonderful Sarah Perriam on to chat about her extensive media career and passion for the future of New Zealand agriculture. These days Sarah runs a production company based just outside of Christchurch and produces her own agricultural podcast called Sarah's country.  Sarah grew up on a sheep and beef station in Centr...

As with our previous seasons of Head Shepherd, we're finishing off season 6 with a Q&A episode with Mark Ferguson. We'd like to thank everyone who sent through their questions. They were vastly different and very thought-provoking, as you'll hear on the podcast! There were nine questions, ranging from the affects of fertility genes on eating quality to the limiting factors withi...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Jock Lawrence, creator and founder of Mobble. After returning home to the family farm in Victoria Australia, and realising that all of the important information was up in "Dads head", Jock and his family trialed some farm management software in an attempt to get the operation running more smoothly. However, none of them worked for both gener...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Renée Hogg of Inside NZ. Renee grew up wanting to go farming, and always had a vision to "Create an industry I wanted to go farming in, and then go farming in it".  Her first role towards this dream, was actually with Apples with the Apple and Pear Marketing Board before it deregulated. And then, during that time she had her own business hel...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast, we're joined by Steve Kelly, Commercial Identification Manager at Allflex, and Kim Kelly, Veterinary Technical Advisor at MSD Animal Health. Allflex has been the sponsor of our podcast since its inception, and it is always great to catch up with the team to hear what they're up to. In this podcast, we focus on Campylobacter, the bacteria often resp...

This week on the podcast we have an hour-long special for you! Mark caught up with Dr Johan Greef, an expert in production and disease traits in Merino Sheep. Johan's career is an exceptional one. From worm resistance and resilience, to breech and dag correlation, high fertility composites, identifying odours from wool; Johan has worked on just about anything important when it comes to breedi...

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Ryan Maclean, based in North West Scotland. Ryan and Mark met through a mutual friend and sheep scanner Daniel Wheeler. Ryan was raised on a beef and sheep farm in Scotland, where he is running around 1,000 ewes and 120 breeding cattle between himself and his father. He runs predominately Cheviot sheep, with some crossed to a Texel. They also have a p...