Corriedales shine in dry

Corriedale breeders are being pointed to lost opportunities where the hardy sheep breed would thrive.

PGG Wrightson wool representative Peter McCusker told a group of the breed’s enthusiasts gathered in the Marble Point woolshed near Culverden that breeders should be taking a vested interest in opportunities to increase their numbers further south.

‘‘We are seeing opportunities these days for corriedale breeders,’’ McCusker said.

‘‘Through increasing fertility and switching out of merinos into halfbred flocks, and a corriedale is really a stabilised halfbred, there is an opportunity there for corriedale growers to be promoting the breed in areas like Central Otago and Ranfurly where we traditionally see more halfbreds. Why couldn’t they be running a corriedale? There is the opportunity for some breeders to do a little more work in these areas.’’

A lot of merino growers were trying to increase their lambing percentage and had been disgruntled with wool prices the last few years, although not at the moment as there was a 20-year high, he said.

‘‘I know of certain farms that have traditionally run halfbreds where corriedales are now being run. They are getting better production and wool out of the corriedale than some of the traditional halfbred flocks.’’

The gathering was part of a Corriedale Society field day which included presentations by ASB rural manager for Canterbury Kelvin Hore and AgResearch’s David Scobie. There was also a 4WD farm tour.

‘‘North Canterbury and Marlborough is a big corriedale area that’s been in drought mode for three seasons. Corriedale growers have not been immune to this,’’ McCusker said. ’’From a wool perspective, I did notice that the corriedale sheep still provided wool and stores to sell through the drought. Corriedales were in a lot better shape than other breeds on restricted feed and the wool quality didn’t noticeably drop off all through that period. It’s a credit to the growers that kept these sheep going.’’

The corriedale breed was originally designed to be a hardy animal for the dry arid east coast conditions.

McCuster said he noticed with the more modern highperformance crossbred sheep that when they didn’t have feed everything took a hit and the wool took a hit as well.

‘‘There was a lot of tender, very dusty crossbred wool coming in,’’ he said. ’’The swint [natural grease of the wool] and the yield over the hot dry months dropped right off. The swint goes right up and dust gets stuck to it. We didn’t see much of this with the corriedale wool and this was a positive in the drought period.’’

There was quite a premium for 25-27 micron wool, he said.