EOFY Wrap Newsletter: July 2024 Edition
The 2023/2024 EOFY Willera Wrap
As we steam ahead into Winter and towards the 2024 ram and ewe selling season we would like to take the opportunity to give some insight into what we have been up to at Willera, what you should expect from us this season in terms of sale rams and sale ewes, and what the future looks like, genetically, for Willera Merinos.
Once again we had a wonderful harvest with all crops performing well and even managed to get all our vetch and oats to hay for a change. Even though we sell most of this, it does give you some confidence heading into what was at the time, a bit of a grim forecast. Huge summer rains meant the lucerne was humming and the ewes had perfect joining conditions which showed in the scanning crate, we also cut lucerne hay and locked up 75 hectares of lucerne for seed and we managed the perfect finish for that as it didn't rain again, not ideal for feed and cropping but it was a treat for harvesting lucerne seed. We, as always, stored a large amount of barley and this gave us the ability to push stock when we needed to, guided by Darren Gordon and his feed budgeting expertise we were confident that we could finish wethers in containment, get ewe lambs to joining weights and lock up large numbers of young ewes, all because of diligent planning and preparation and both the cropping and livestock working in harmony.
The Willera website took on a fresh look in the Spring of 2023. This was all part of a project taken on to speak to consumers, middle markets and processors about the products we produce here at Willera, and look at new ways to "stand out from the crowd". Jump online and have a look, its much cleaner and lends a lot more insight to our goals and ambitions, and how we are we are making them happen, not so much stuff about the "ribbon winners" from 30 years ago!
During a meeting with Nextgen Agri in June we looked at a broad range of key production traits based on ASBV's from the past 7 years, we were then able to translate those traits into the animals we handle in 2024, and it has certainly ticked our breeding objectives! You aren't always guaranteed to achieve the desired results and breeding sheep to a specific set of criteria is no easy feat, there's always going to be a bit of "give and take" and a few "trade-offs" but we've be able to stay true to our beliefs and can back it up with facts and results, both within our own system and outside it.
DOWNLOAD AND READ OUR FULL NEWSLETTER: HERE