At Kismet it’s all about longevity and the work load and being in the front line of an exciting and expanding lamb industry. Today we need sheep that are easy care ie. easy lambing and have live lambs.

We find that the best way to do this is to have rams that are not too big in the head have good neck extension and compact shoulders (not like a rugby player). This way the ewes lamb quickly and easily and therefore are less likely to have a dead lamb at birth.

With the above in mind the lamb can still be a good size without birthing difficulty’s. So far we have 1200 lambs on the ground and haven’t assisted any to this point! We think the industry is only going to get bigger and stronger with Asia and China in particular buying more lamb each year.

Today the demand has moved away from the big rangy hard to finish lamb to a more compact type with good depth and body shape with quicker maturity in the 18 to 25 kg range. One also has to be careful when buying with objective measurement figures as often the best figured rams are the shorter thicker rams with short necks and big shoulders thus creating the lambing problems, so make sure you like the shape of the ram before you look at the figures.

We use the Stockscan system at Kismet which shows the raw data on eye muscle and fat depth and growth rates (all very important). In today’s market you need a little fat cover for flavour and finishing.

Pictured is a typical young White Suffolk Ram at 13 months of age totally paddock reared (no grain).

We start our Spring Ram selling season with our Annual Ram Sale on Wednesday 9th October 2013 with inspection at 11 am and the sale commences at 1 pm.

Graham Wilson