A rustic sign and a numbered mail-box are the unfailing feature of farm road-ends in New Zealand.
I was a little bit lost just South of Taihape - the gumboot capital of the world (or central North Island if you are still unsure), when trying to meet up with Roger Marshall and Matt Holden who run the Kelso sheep flock. I cautiously went round a corner on a gravel road and there it was, not just a mail-box, but a great big sign and a flag! The flag said – Kelso: Listening, Thinking, Innovating. I knew I’d come to the right place.
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I was a little bit lost just South of Taihape - the gumboot capital of the world (or central North Island if you are still unsure), when trying to meet up with Roger Marshall and Matt Holden who run the Kelso sheep flock. I cautiously went round a corner on a gravel road and there it was, not just a mail-box, but a great big sign and a flag! The flag said – Kelso: Listening, Thinking, Innovating. I knew I’d come to the right place.
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The Kelso sheep operation is based at Tutu Totara, a farm which has been in the Marshall family since the 1850’s. Roger, now in his 80’s, by his own admission was ‘not a natural farmer’, but a period working with Arthur Wheeler, one of the top Romney breeders of the time, lit a spark in him and he was selling Romney rams on his own account in 1956.
“I learned what Arthur considered the important points of a sheep, which related to performance and ultimately bottom line profit for clients”, says Roger.
That focus on client’s profitability has stood the Kelso flock in good stead through almost 60 years of ram sales. There is no doubting Roger’s passion for sheep breeding and his direction is clear – business-like, and client focused, but with a healthy emphasis on being proud of the look of the sheep he sells too.
“Why limit the potential of our sheep by ‘straight-jacketing’ their genes and voluntarily limiting genetic diversity by being bound by strict breed society rules?” explains Roger. As a past president of the NZ Texel Association, I don’t think he has anything against breed societies, but he seems to me as someone not prepared to let convention get in the way of a good idea.
He was attracted by the performance of the Coopworth – a composite of Romney and Border Leicester developed in the ‘60s with strict performance criteria and intensive recording by Prof Ian Coop. The Kelso Romneys bred into Coopworths shortly after. Roger was invited to be on the selection team for Texel and Finn importations in the early ‘90s, and set up a quarantine station at Tutu Totara so as to be one of the first to get hands-on experience with these breeds in New Zealand conditions. Both of these breeds are now incorporated into the Kelso breeding program, which has been set up with the help and advice from some of the world’s leading sheep geneticists.
Convention hasn’t stood in the way of succession of ram sale business either. Long-term ram client, Matt Holden now runs the ewe flock on a hill property a couple of hours away in Hawkes Bay. He has a stake in the Kelso business alongside David Marshall, Roger’s son. The Tutu Totara property is just used for rams now, as stud ewes have had to follow commercial ewes up the hill to keep relevant. No use in breeding rams on a dairy farm, if their progeny are to be used in hill country. In the same vein, Matt does no shepherding at lambing time, but uses DNA sampling to determine parentage, and with the same test identifies lambs with the ‘myomax’ muscling gene.
In fact lambing time is when Matt does most of his flock visits. He tries to visit each client on their farm once a year – part of the ‘Listening, Thinking, Innovating’ way of doing business.
“I learned what Arthur considered the important points of a sheep, which related to performance and ultimately bottom line profit for clients”, says Roger.
That focus on client’s profitability has stood the Kelso flock in good stead through almost 60 years of ram sales. There is no doubting Roger’s passion for sheep breeding and his direction is clear – business-like, and client focused, but with a healthy emphasis on being proud of the look of the sheep he sells too.
“Why limit the potential of our sheep by ‘straight-jacketing’ their genes and voluntarily limiting genetic diversity by being bound by strict breed society rules?” explains Roger. As a past president of the NZ Texel Association, I don’t think he has anything against breed societies, but he seems to me as someone not prepared to let convention get in the way of a good idea.
He was attracted by the performance of the Coopworth – a composite of Romney and Border Leicester developed in the ‘60s with strict performance criteria and intensive recording by Prof Ian Coop. The Kelso Romneys bred into Coopworths shortly after. Roger was invited to be on the selection team for Texel and Finn importations in the early ‘90s, and set up a quarantine station at Tutu Totara so as to be one of the first to get hands-on experience with these breeds in New Zealand conditions. Both of these breeds are now incorporated into the Kelso breeding program, which has been set up with the help and advice from some of the world’s leading sheep geneticists.
Convention hasn’t stood in the way of succession of ram sale business either. Long-term ram client, Matt Holden now runs the ewe flock on a hill property a couple of hours away in Hawkes Bay. He has a stake in the Kelso business alongside David Marshall, Roger’s son. The Tutu Totara property is just used for rams now, as stud ewes have had to follow commercial ewes up the hill to keep relevant. No use in breeding rams on a dairy farm, if their progeny are to be used in hill country. In the same vein, Matt does no shepherding at lambing time, but uses DNA sampling to determine parentage, and with the same test identifies lambs with the ‘myomax’ muscling gene.
In fact lambing time is when Matt does most of his flock visits. He tries to visit each client on their farm once a year – part of the ‘Listening, Thinking, Innovating’ way of doing business.
RAM SELLING
Matt Buckley has been using Kelso Maternals for a good while, and arrived for his usual trailer load of 13 rams next morning after a 3 hour drive. He had pre-ordered his selection indicating Maternal or Terminal, which price bracket (based on performance index) and the number required.
There were four clients that day, all in the second top price bracket ($1300), so the appropriate mob had been brought in, of what might have been about 300 rams. As the top bracket buyers had all been in previous weeks, the rams which they had passed on were joined in amongst this mob too, so there were some of the top performing rams available. Clients get a random selection of rams put in front of them, four times the number booked – so we’d drafted 50 rams for Matt to look over.
Upstairs in the Kelso wool-shed on wooded slats is a big round pen – ideal for getting a good look at 6 or 8 sheep at a time, Matt went through his 50 rams. He picked about 20, based on the type, stature and wool type that he preferred. We then ran them up a race and an electronic tag (eid) reader was run over them which brought their individual records up on a large screen above the race. Matt Holden was then able to rank the rams based on index, or whatever trait the client required.
In this case, Matt Buckley had been using Kelso Maternals for a few generations, so wasn’t particularly looking to increase litter-size, and focused more on weaning weight. The bottom performing rams for weaning weight were identified and pulled out, which left him with 15 rams. We let them out into the round pen again and he had a selection of rams that were very even on type and performance. I think he might have taken them all had his trailer been big enough, but he pulled out another two based on wool type.
A cup of tea sealed the deal, and there was nearly an hour for a chat and catch up before rams were loaded and sent on their way. This was a very professional, business-like way of selling rams but at the same time was relaxed and quite social. There was time to discuss particular requirements and an even pick of rams was ensured. Innovative use of technology meant that although figures were used, no paper was involved and the buyer didn’t need to have an understanding of the performance data – the Kelso team could rank the rams based on what he wanted to achieve with his flock.
Matt Buckley has been using Kelso Maternals for a good while, and arrived for his usual trailer load of 13 rams next morning after a 3 hour drive. He had pre-ordered his selection indicating Maternal or Terminal, which price bracket (based on performance index) and the number required.
There were four clients that day, all in the second top price bracket ($1300), so the appropriate mob had been brought in, of what might have been about 300 rams. As the top bracket buyers had all been in previous weeks, the rams which they had passed on were joined in amongst this mob too, so there were some of the top performing rams available. Clients get a random selection of rams put in front of them, four times the number booked – so we’d drafted 50 rams for Matt to look over.
Upstairs in the Kelso wool-shed on wooded slats is a big round pen – ideal for getting a good look at 6 or 8 sheep at a time, Matt went through his 50 rams. He picked about 20, based on the type, stature and wool type that he preferred. We then ran them up a race and an electronic tag (eid) reader was run over them which brought their individual records up on a large screen above the race. Matt Holden was then able to rank the rams based on index, or whatever trait the client required.
In this case, Matt Buckley had been using Kelso Maternals for a few generations, so wasn’t particularly looking to increase litter-size, and focused more on weaning weight. The bottom performing rams for weaning weight were identified and pulled out, which left him with 15 rams. We let them out into the round pen again and he had a selection of rams that were very even on type and performance. I think he might have taken them all had his trailer been big enough, but he pulled out another two based on wool type.
A cup of tea sealed the deal, and there was nearly an hour for a chat and catch up before rams were loaded and sent on their way. This was a very professional, business-like way of selling rams but at the same time was relaxed and quite social. There was time to discuss particular requirements and an even pick of rams was ensured. Innovative use of technology meant that although figures were used, no paper was involved and the buyer didn’t need to have an understanding of the performance data – the Kelso team could rank the rams based on what he wanted to achieve with his flock.
Roger’s parting advice to me was: “You have got to stick to the middle ground – performance is what drives your client’s bottom line, but you can’t just follow figures because he has to be proud of the rams when you deliver them.” I agree with that anyway, but I think I can learn from his professional outlook of the ram business, use of expert advice when needed, and I hope some of his perception to find novel ways of overcoming challenges has rubbed off. Listening, Thinking, Innovating – there’s a lot of that going on at Kelso, New Zealand