Hautere Perendale rams top the flock
High SIL rankings prove worth of stud’s offering
John Henricksen and his son Carey breed tough sheep on tough country on the eastern side of the Puketoi Range . . . with powerful results. Three quarters of the Hautere Perendale rams sold last season were in the top 5 per cent of the Maternal Worth index in Sheep Improvement Ltd’s (SIL) across-flock analysis.
All the rams were in the top 20 per cent. That meant a 2600 index and 2125 index respectively.
To ensure genetic gain in both his own flock and clients’ flocks, John says only two-tooth ewes and rams with the New Zealand Maternal Worth Plus Meat index above 2000 on SIL’s across flock analysis are retained or offered for sale.
This constant genetic improvement means the stud is continuously raising the bar, he says.
The stud has always tracked above the breed average for all traits recorded on SIL’s genetic trend graphs, including growth, wool, reproduction and survivability.
The survivability aspect has tested them this year, with hundreds of lambs being born into water as the district experiences an extremely wet spring.
Annual rainfall at Henricksen’s house averages 1650 millimetres; they’d received that with still three months to go for the year.
Some of the lambs on the ground this season are the progeny of the Henricksens’ big purchase at the annual Gore ram fair earlier this year — they won a spirited bidding fight to pay $15,500 for Snowdon E73/20, from Snowdon Station in Canterbury’s Rakaia Gorge.
The ram was described as exceptional example of the breed in both appearance and genetic merit.
John explains, “He had the right balance of being structurally sound and carrying top production figures, his index was over 4000. I’ve never seen a ram sold with a higher index.”
The Henricksens sell about 200 rams on-farm in December with clients travelling from around the North Island, including Taumarunui,
Taranaki, Gisborne and Wairarapa.
Hautere is 759ha of medium to steep hill country including an 80ha
runoff block “down the bottom“of Korora Rd (20km west of Pongaroa), a QEII National Trust covenanted bush block, and several tree plantations for shelter and erosion control.
The home farm is 569ha effective, running eight stock units to the hectare including 60 Angus breeding cows and 2200 Perendale ewes — one third stud and two thirds commercial. The ewes are run together most of the year with stud ewes pulled out for tupping and lambing. Ewe lambs are also run as one mob until their first tupping.
Lambing is in the middle of September with the rams put out in midApril.
The ewes, across the stud and commercial, average 130 per cent lambing.
John says they farm them “fairly tight”. His aim is to breed good Perendales that will go out and “do what they’re supposed to do”.