Kaahu Stud uses only facial eczema
tested and tolerant rams.
The
original stud rams and ewes were chosen from the most facial eczema
tolerant flocks. These flocks began testing in 1984 with a
company called Stock SAFETI for sporidesmin susceptibility.
The
stud sires used at Kaahu have been tested with a dose rate of up to
0.6mg/kg liveweight.
The top 10% of Kaahu ram
hoggets, based on production and conformation, are tested for facial
eczema tolerance by RamGUARD. The top 2% are retained as stud
sires.
Kaahu Stud is Facial Eczema Gold™
certified.
Production
Kaahu 95/13 is our leading sire in 2015 on SIL-ACE Dual Purpose
Production
(DPP) index. He ranked first for growth on the NZOSR Sire Summary DPG Trait Leaders SIL selection report (January 2015). Kaahu 95/13 was chosen to represent the Coopworth breed in the Central Progeny Test for 2015 and had semen collected at ABS.
Kaahu
Stud's mixed age ewes lambing percentage is 188% average
weaned,
and the ewe hoggets lambing percentage is 123% average weaned.
Worm Resistance/Resilience
At
Kaahu we use Zoetis' WormSTAR® DNA worm resistance
test in our selection program. Sire selection is
based on zero dags and open breech.
Carcass
DNA
testing by Zoetis is used to select for the MyoMAX® lean
muscle
gene in our breeding program. Kaahu Stud is able to
select stud sires from rams carrying 2 copies (Gold) of the MyoMAX®
gene. Ram hoggets are also weighed and eye muscle scanned
(EMA) to select for fast early growth and
a lean
carcass.
As part
of our continual
evaluation of the breeding selection program a sample of Kaahu
Stud's top ram hoggets were Computed Tomography (CT) scanned
at
Lincoln University. The
results confirm the direction Kaahu Stud is taking.
Feet
We
pay particular attention to both foot shape and
conformation. The Footrot Gene-Marker Test (FGMT) is
used on
potential stud sires to measure their immunity to infection.
