FE Gold Accredited Flock
Ashgrove Coopworths were a founding flock in the elite FE Gold group of breeders.
This means ram clients are guaranteed to be buying some of the best Facial Eczema resistant genetics on the market. Ashgrove has a history of over 33 years of testing for FE and only using top sires. For the last 15 years all sires have been tested for FE with a dose of sporidesmin at 0.6mg/kgLW. Also 10% of sale rams must be dosed at this level to retain FE Gold status. You can read more about FE Gold by visiting www.fegold.co.nz
Ashgrove Advantage
Genetic gain guaranteed. Ashgrove customers gain a competitive advantage as a result of Ashgrove’s passion for excellence.
The graph below compares Ashgrove (Flock 1139) to all 425 dual purpose production flocks in the SIL Advanced Central Evaluation. SIL ACE identifies New Zealand’s best rams for economic traits across flock and breed. The dotted line is the average genetic trend of all 425 flocks since 1995.
Uncompromising Selection
Only top performing sound ewes are retained as studs. Potential Ashgrove studs undergo an uncompromising selection to exclude any structural faults. Any ewes with even minor faults are transferred out of the stud flock. However this is no reason to ease up. In addition, we run the stud flock under commercial conditions to ensure they can stand up to our customers’ on farm requirements.
We select for commercial traits:
- Facial eczema resistance – rams (10%) dosed with sporidesmin at 0.6mg/kg/LW
- Top growth rates
- High fertility and survival – including teat placement and mothering ability
- Heavy fleece weights
- Meaty carcass
- Worm resistance – all ram hoggets WormFec tested
Structural traits:
- Easy care sheep, allowing for nil shepherding
- Good even wool type and culled carefully for black spots
- Good constitution
- Sound feet
- Longevity and sound mouths – commercial Coopworth ewes culled at 6 years of age. Stud ewes kept as long as sound – often till 8 or 9 years of age.
Genetic Performance Records
All stud sheep are performance recorded through Sheep Improvement Limited (SIL). The farmer owned genetic evaluation system run by Beef + Lamb Genetics. To establish their estimated breeding values, all lambs are tagged at birth to match them to their Dam and Sire and their lifetime performance is monitored along with that of their relatives within the Ashgrove flock and other linked stud flocks.
