New Armatree' is run by Jenny and Craig Bradley, along with their son Jack. Image: Nicole McGuire Photography
NSW sheep producer Jenny Bradley was one of more than 30 speakers at LambEx 2024 who brought her experience to the table to explore the industry's future.
If you don't measure, you can't improve
Jenny runs a mixed farming business and 'New Armatree' Border Leicester stud alongside her family at Armatree.
For the Bradleys, data is king.
"Our business strives to achieve management best practice, which extends to the records we collect," Jenny said.
"We select on a lot of traits, and good record-keeping shows the variation within the stud animals for us to make selection decisions.
"Over the past 10 years, we've decreased our mortality rate within our commercial ewes, and increased lamb survival."
As well as the good performers, data reveals what may not be performing in the business.
"We keep paddock lambing performance records to identify paddocks which aren't performing well and how we can improve lamb survival."
With strong on-farm data, Jenny wants to source more from the supply chain.
"Hook tracking in the abattoirs is the missing link for producers, and processors are struggling to implement and provide data back to the producer," Jenny said.
"We're doing a lot of work to improve our seedstock, but we get very little feedback from the processors with our commercial lambs going over the hook, which is limited to fat score and carcase weight.
"In 35 years, very little has changed. We have the opportunity with hook tracking and eID to obtain more feedback on individual animals."
Jenny believes the added information could help to produce better lambs.
"Feedback is a point within the industry which could be revolutionary for lamb in the national and international markets."
Maximising value from genomics
As long-time Sheep Genetics clients, the Bradleys use LAMBPLAN to evaluate their seedstock.
Genomics have been the advancement required to breed better lambs without processor feedback.
"Genomics have allowed us to examine and select rams and their progeny on the things which we can't measure or see unless they're slaughtered."
The information has allowed the Bradleys to make decisions earlier than ever.
"We're genotyping a large selection of ram lambs to become potential sires at weaning," Jenny said.
"We join them when they're six-and-a-half months of age, to shorten generational interval and increase the rate of genetic gain. We also genotype all maiden ewes retained within the stud."
Every improvement counts
At New Armatree, no approach goes untrialled, as the Bradleys constantly look to new tools and research.
"There's so much you can do within your business. We look at both genetics and the practical side of lambing for lamb survival," Jenny said.
Improvements have led to 87–90% lamb survival across all litter sizes.
Some of those ideas come from free resources, including MLA and AWI's
Making More From Sheep program, which was relaunched at LambEx.
"One of the big game changers, resulting in the largest jump in initial production gains, was condition scoring, and it's such an easy practice to implement.
"At four times of the year, we condition score the ewes and then make management decisions to achieve our production goals."
Taking to the stage
Working towards continual improvement is what brought Jenny to LambEx's panel on the future of the lamb industry, informed by both her on-farm experience and her role on several boards and committees, including the Sheep Producers Australia (SPA) Policy Council, and as Vice Chair of the NSW Farmers Sheepmeat Committee.
Alongside other industry representatives, Jenny discussed the need for a better producer-to-processor relationship, both to improve carcase feedback and stability within the industry.
"It's a reactive industry at the moment – the processors and the producers never know what's coming," Jenny said.
Compliance and sustainability were also key to Jenny's discussion, where she noted the increasing eort for producers to stay compliant with industry standards and regulations.
"At the moment, I have three or four different compliance avenues which I have to keep up to date to meet national and international standards, and they're all very similar.
"Compliance is such an important aspect of all our businesses as it underpins our entire trade. It's important to create a process which is both simple and takes everyone along for the ride."
Lessons learnt
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