Sheep
Fridlington Farms sheep enterprise for the past 20 years has taken on the New Zealand influenced Easy Care System working closely with Innovis to improve sheep production and quality. In association with SAC discussion groups the farm is always looking for improvement and new ideologies to increase its knowledge and involvement in sheep breeding and feed planning to produce the best quality lamb that the market has to offer.
Working with Innovis the farm has taken on its breeding programme which enables production of a high-quality lamb on the system we practice today. With the NZ Suffolk and Texel as the farms terminal sires this enables us to produce a high-performance finishing lamb which has been seen to excel in its meat characteristics.
Working Process
The work done with Innovis has enabled the farm to produce its own nucleus flock of Highlander ewes to produce rams and ewe lambs for sale.
The targeted breeding objectives of Primera are:
- To lamb unassisted
- Fast growth and early maturity
- Efficient conversion of grass to carcass
- Selection for market required meat characteristics
Breeding To Perfection
The Primera breed is the result of the world’s largest progeny test and its main focus to date is meat quality to get the best flavour and textures that lamb has to offer.
The Maternal sire is the Highlander breed which combines fertility and high survival rates to deliver an efficient and profitable maternal ewe system.
The targeted breeding objectives are:
- Lamb as a hogget
- Rear two or three lambs as a 2-TH and onwards
- Longevity
- Efficiently wean their body weight plus
- Remain structurally sound
- Modest ewe weight and input requirements
Our Main Focus
The main focuses that the farm and Innovis have on the maternal sire are to increase heritability throughout the flock with an increase in the lambs’ survival rates, also to increase the muscling on the animals’ leg and rump. Reducing disease in the flock is also a major factor with parasite resistance and resilience as a huge focus and facial eczema resistance.
Fridlington Farms objectives are to keep on working closely with Innovis and the various discussion groups that it is involved in, to strive to be one on the best producers of quality lamb in the region and to achieve a high level of animal welfare.
The lambs are overwintered on stubble turnips and fodder beet with runback areas of westerwold grass. This enables us to utilise all the land on the farm for lamb production with it tying in well with the arable side of the farm. Fridlington Farms tried to incorporate the flock as much with the arable side as possible to increase our organic matter in our soils and decrease the use of inorganic fertilisers. We are current holders of the NFU Malton branch fodder beet trophy and the ICI Nitram silage cup which shows we take out sheep enterprise serious, good quality food makes good quality lambs.