why westray?
Westray is striving to breed well balanced, quicker maturing, heavy cutting medium to strong wool merinos and poll merinos to cater for both meat and wool markets. We feel it is important to have a large carcass with a productive skin in order to maximise kilograms of saleable meat and wool. Quality of the wool remains at the forefront of our selection criteria, we have purified our micron whilst maintaining our high fleece weights, yield and handle. Other notable selection criteria we have improved on are fertility and mothering ability to ensure more lambs are weaned and ultimately sold. Our focus on objectively measuring eye muscle depth and fat coverage is important for doing ability and time taken to finish on the wether lamb side. By increasing our genetic fat it has increased our ewe’s body reserves, thus improving condition and therefore making our bloodline more resilient in tougher seasons. Combine these selection criteria mentioned above and Westray Merinos are a tailored, holistic genetic package that will boost your bottom line because we are aware and focussed on the key commercial profit drivers.
Within the stud, ewes are individually mated initially, lambs mothered to have full pedigrees recorded; this allows identification and classification into various breeding families. The system practiced maximises control of the various families within the stud and has given stability of a homogenous nature to the sheep, that in turn ensures their chances of transmitting their inherited desirable characteristics to other sheep is maximised.
Stud ram lambs are repeatedly classed combining visual and objective measurement to meet the stud’s tough criteria to ensure that only the best make it through for your selection and ensuring the progeny continue to meet your criteria after you’ve taken them home. We are continuously evolving the type that we produce to suit our client’s demands and those of end users. Our focus is to make your sheep enterprise more profitable, through the production of the best dual purpose merino possible. We objectively measure body weight, eye muscle depth, fat depth, micron, coefficient of variation, comfort factor, standard deviation, fleece weight and fertility through pregnancy scanning for singles and multiples. The result is a balanced, predictable and profitable high quality merino.
Westray focuses its breeding priorities on highly heritable production traits; these are fleece weights, micron, fertility and bodyweight. Skin quality has always been a focal point; skins should be soft, pliable and elastic. Westray has continued to focus on productive skins and has avoided the trend towards thin, low productive skins because fleece weights matter. Quality wool production stems from high density, length and uniformity of secondary wool fibres. High fibre density is achieved by genetically improving secondary wool follicle development. These skins are highly heritable and grow wool fast with extra length of staple that is beautifully aligned with nourishment to repel dust and water. With the right skin on a Westray merino, your wool production will be high.
Our lambing percentages have a 3 year average of 109%, we have a multi-faceted approach to improving this key profit driver; management, nutrition and genetics. On the management side we have placed more emphasis on the maternal ability of our ewe base, not only fertility by pregnancy scanning for singles and multiples but also ensuring ewes raise there lambs through mothering ability. We give our stud ewes a second chance largely due to climatic variability, but then they are gone if they don’t perform. Our nutrition has improved rapidly in recent years with our ratio of improved pastures to natives being elevated substantially. We also supplement with grain, hay and lick powders at key times to ensure maximum productivity. Genetically, through selection pressure and with our full pedigrees we have been able to select twin reared sires to boost this area.
2018 Gross Margins:
A self replacing commercial Westray Flock is a very profitable, low cost and lower risk enterprise.
1. 8-10kg of greasy wool @ $13.30 per kg(20.5 micron @ 1900c/kg x 70% yield) =$106-$133
2. Finished merino wether lambs = $160 + wool $50=$210
3. Cull and aged ewes joined to terminal sires= wool $106-$133 Plus fat lamb $180=$286-$313
4. Ewes at the end of their commercial life sold for mutton = $130-$140
5. Combined annual income of merino ewe, wool +lamb $306-$333 per merino ewe per year
6. Combined annual income of 1st cross enterprise, wool + lamb=$ 286-$313 per ewe per year
If you consider that the merino enterprise ewe will typically out cut the lesser merino ewe joined to the terminal sire and with a booming wool market the merino enterprise will be a higher returning enterprise.
The above figures are courtesy of Western Wool Marketing and recent sale results achieved by Westray clients, the gross margins don’t factor in variables like lambing percentages exceeding 100%, which is common and also the mutton sale at the end of the commercial life (No.4), this further enhances the above figures. Cost structures can be calculated on one shearing per annum.
Within the stud, ewes are individually mated initially, lambs mothered to have full pedigrees recorded; this allows identification and classification into various breeding families. The system practiced maximises control of the various families within the stud and has given stability of a homogenous nature to the sheep, that in turn ensures their chances of transmitting their inherited desirable characteristics to other sheep is maximised.
Stud ram lambs are repeatedly classed combining visual and objective measurement to meet the stud’s tough criteria to ensure that only the best make it through for your selection and ensuring the progeny continue to meet your criteria after you’ve taken them home. We are continuously evolving the type that we produce to suit our client’s demands and those of end users. Our focus is to make your sheep enterprise more profitable, through the production of the best dual purpose merino possible. We objectively measure body weight, eye muscle depth, fat depth, micron, coefficient of variation, comfort factor, standard deviation, fleece weight and fertility through pregnancy scanning for singles and multiples. The result is a balanced, predictable and profitable high quality merino.
Westray focuses its breeding priorities on highly heritable production traits; these are fleece weights, micron, fertility and bodyweight. Skin quality has always been a focal point; skins should be soft, pliable and elastic. Westray has continued to focus on productive skins and has avoided the trend towards thin, low productive skins because fleece weights matter. Quality wool production stems from high density, length and uniformity of secondary wool fibres. High fibre density is achieved by genetically improving secondary wool follicle development. These skins are highly heritable and grow wool fast with extra length of staple that is beautifully aligned with nourishment to repel dust and water. With the right skin on a Westray merino, your wool production will be high.
Our lambing percentages have a 3 year average of 109%, we have a multi-faceted approach to improving this key profit driver; management, nutrition and genetics. On the management side we have placed more emphasis on the maternal ability of our ewe base, not only fertility by pregnancy scanning for singles and multiples but also ensuring ewes raise there lambs through mothering ability. We give our stud ewes a second chance largely due to climatic variability, but then they are gone if they don’t perform. Our nutrition has improved rapidly in recent years with our ratio of improved pastures to natives being elevated substantially. We also supplement with grain, hay and lick powders at key times to ensure maximum productivity. Genetically, through selection pressure and with our full pedigrees we have been able to select twin reared sires to boost this area.
2018 Gross Margins:
A self replacing commercial Westray Flock is a very profitable, low cost and lower risk enterprise.
1. 8-10kg of greasy wool @ $13.30 per kg(20.5 micron @ 1900c/kg x 70% yield) =$106-$133
2. Finished merino wether lambs = $160 + wool $50=$210
3. Cull and aged ewes joined to terminal sires= wool $106-$133 Plus fat lamb $180=$286-$313
4. Ewes at the end of their commercial life sold for mutton = $130-$140
5. Combined annual income of merino ewe, wool +lamb $306-$333 per merino ewe per year
6. Combined annual income of 1st cross enterprise, wool + lamb=$ 286-$313 per ewe per year
If you consider that the merino enterprise ewe will typically out cut the lesser merino ewe joined to the terminal sire and with a booming wool market the merino enterprise will be a higher returning enterprise.
The above figures are courtesy of Western Wool Marketing and recent sale results achieved by Westray clients, the gross margins don’t factor in variables like lambing percentages exceeding 100%, which is common and also the mutton sale at the end of the commercial life (No.4), this further enhances the above figures. Cost structures can be calculated on one shearing per annum.