SAMM / Lucerne Mix A Winner For Quintarra
A successful pasture mix including lucerne and improved ryegrasses, together with SAMM genetics via Lambplan, are helping Mick and Todd Quinlivan of Quintarra Farms Esperance to achieve almost year-round production of prime, heavy lambs for the Cooperative.
Quintarra has followed up a win in March 2005 by taking WAMMCO’s Producer of the Month title for June 2007.
Todd said the enterprise was now consigning heavy lambs to WAMMCO almost every month from an annual turnoff of around 8,000 lambs.
The Quintarra consignments are not only regular but consistently amongst the top scorers.
Quintarra was mating 14,000 ewes each year in a program that fitted well with the cropping, cattle and cashflow objectives of the farm.
Heavy reliance is placed on Lambplan and the SAMM genetics are constantly monitored and benchmarked. “SAMMs have given us the confidence to increase the spread of our lamb turn-off over the past four years, because the carryover lambs do not ‘blow out’ in condition,” he said.
Good seasons have resulted in the Esperance region becoming one of WAMMCO’s most reliable prime lamb suppliers. The Schmedje brothers of Gibson who buy in and finish a large number of lambs each year, won the May POM title for 2007.
Todd Quinlivan said good summer rains in January sparked the area after a rainfall cut-off in September last year.
“The pastures, especially the lucerne, were quick to respond, providing an excellent early green pick for the entire flock, especially the breeding ewes.
“The male lambs were well backgrounded on lucerne when the season opened early with excellent rains in April, and this enabled them to finished both on pastures and in the finishing sheds.”
The title-winning Quintarra lambs were in a consignment of 397 processed by WAMMCO at Katanning on June 7.
The lambs averaged 25.98 kg for $3.44 per kg to return $95.07 including $5.70 for the skin. Nearly 70 percent of the consignment were in the premium 22.1 – 26 kg fat score 2 & 3 class, while 84.5 percent weighed 24.1 kg or above.
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