Lawson and Lima Park Ranches

Day 4:

Lawson's Angus cattle

We began the day at Lawson's Angus ranch this morning. It was yet another cold day full of drizzle but Mr. Lawson was kind enough to show us his herd and give us a valuable briefing of how his farm operates. Some background for this ranch was that he and his brother took over the ranch from their father right out of college roughly twenty years ago. They were lucky enough to see agriculture across the globe and made decisions with that information regarding how they wanted their ranch ran. Using many of the same concepts and genetics as the Gardiner Angus ranch that is local back home. I saw a huge change in the treatment of cattle here than in the states. The Lawson ranch is a very intensive ranch that utilizes the local rye grass and clover to grow out their cattle with a huge reliance on survival of the fittest. They put a greater stress on their cattle as calves by forcing them to compete with each other to get a true idea about how each of their genetics will play out instead of catering to the cattle that aren't performing up to par. They do have some advantages over most farms in the U.S. through a 90% A.I. conception rate with use of a higher quality GnRH and an animal-friendly endophyte grass that retains the insect resistance without the increase of grass tetany.

Lima Park's Hereford cattle

Next we visited the Lima Park Hereford ranch where I saw a very different perspective. Mr. McMillan has a mixed farm running around 3000 sheep and 500 head of cattle. He primarily sells his cattle and sheep to the European Union with wool going to China. His practice is strange compared to those common in the U.S. due to the fact that his average cow weight is around a ton and he does not retain heifers out of heifers. I did find it fascinating that he had a product called "Clik" that was used to eliminate fly strike in his ewes for the summer months. Tomorrow we visit both a sheep and emu operation so stay tuned for some fun facts about those species.