Returns drive investment into electronic identification and Australian Sheep Breeding Values
Jessica Horstman, Chris Hasleby and Pam Hasleby manage Mulga Springs poll merino stud. The property is located in the shire of Northampton in the northern agricultural region of WA. Approximately 4500 sheep are managed on the property, including 2800 commercial ewes as well as a 600-ewe poll merino stud.
Mulga Springs have invested in electronic identification equipment to improve efficiency of data collection as well as adopting Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) and providing ASBV data on their sale rams.
At this early stage, the family are just starting out and the challenge remains to get a return out of the investment. This analysis showed that the stud only needed to generate an additional seven ram sales a year or increase the average ram price by $35 (or achieve a combination of the two), to break even on their investment.
For more information, see the case study on the right side of the page.