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The focus of Wongajong is the supply of commercial rams to the Specialist First-cross breeder. This focus may seem natural - yet in the stud world, show and breed points can easily become dominant while vital factors such as fertility and worm resistance, invisible to the eye, can be overlooked.
We select for:
This focus means that we concentrate on the two main profit drivers in the lamb industry, which are ewe fertility and growth rate. Faster growth means that both first and second-cross lambs reach market weight in a shorter time and can be grown on to higher carcass weights. Ewe fertility means that there are more lambs born to grow on to those higher weights.
All Wongajong sheep carry the distinctive Border Leicester clean white head and Roman nose. We do not further emphasis these features.
The original Wongajong stud was established at Goulburn by John Foord in 1939. John bred the rams along traditional lines and won ribbons at major shows. One major feature was his use of many sires from New Zealand, notably from the Tahuna, Flaxton and McCombie studs.
The stud was purchased by Allan and Christine Wilson in 1995 and moved to "Cal Col" farm at Deniliquin. Both Allan and Christine had scientific backgrounds, and knew that the stud had been included in some of the basic LAMBPLAN measurements that NSW Agriculture undertook in the early 1990's. It was natural that the new system of selection by objective measurement would become a major part of the stud's direction.
"Cal Col" is a small farm, without irrigation. The main enterprise is breeding Border Leicesters. There are no other livestock, so we can concentrate on being good at breeding Borders. A small area is planted to cereals or canola, with the land resown to dryland lucerne. The remaining pastures are native perennials, which are reinforced with introduced clovers.
We trade rams and semen with other $uperBorder$ studs and compare our rams with their rams through our genetic linkages. We also market our stock under the common $uperBorder$ brand and advertise together. For links to other $uperBorder$ studs, see our group website at www.superborders.com.
Research Stations at Cowra, Hamilton and Rutherglen have conducted a large trial that compared the performance of many sires from all the major breeds for crossing with Merinos to produce prime lamb mothers. This was called the Maternal Central Progeny Test, or MCPT. Results from the MCPT show that Border Leicester by Merino ewes, bred from the best of the Border rams, are some of the top dollar earners (lambs born + meat and wool grown) of all the alternative breeds.
However, the most important finding from this trial is that the choice of breed is less important than choosing the best ram from within each breed. Some Border rams bred top First-cross ewes, whilst others didn't. The same applied to other breeds.
This re-inforces the Wongajong focus on choosing the best performing rams to use as sires in the stud and presenting the performance figures of each ram at the point-of-sale, so you can choose the best ram for your needs.