The breed, established by Mid Canterbury sheep farmer Blair Gallagher, sheep genetics expert Jock Allison and Canterbury farm consultant John Tavendale, has its first commercial lamb crop in the market this season.
“There’s a lot of interest and we are seeing some very pleasing results,” Gallagher said.
He cited the sale of Beltex-Perendale-Romney lambs sold at the annual Surrey Hills on-farm lamb sale last month as a market indicator for exciting times to come for the breed.
“At $150 they topped the sale and by quite a bit. It was a very pleasing result and an outstanding debut in the market for Beltex-cross with the average for all the lambs sold being $5.65 ahead of the Suffolk-cross and $8 more than the top line of Romneys.”
Good farmer feedback about lambs on the ground this season from rams sold at the inaugural sale is encouraging as BeltexNZ prepares for its second sale next month.
Otara sheep farmer Lyle Mason is happy with the Beltex-Suffolk ram he put over his Perendale ewes.
“I think he’s met expectation, I didn’t really know what to expect – just hoped he’d be better than what I’ve been getting.
“Over 200 ewes we got 250 lambs so I was pretty happy with that.”
Mason said 92 of the 250 Beltex-Suffolk lambs went at weaning as 17kg lambs averaging $121 on the kill sheet compared to a $116 average for the Perendales.
“I’m happy with the results and I hope to be back to buy again this year,” Mason said.
One of three in a syndicate who bought the top price Beltex-cross Suffolk ram at the first sale and also with interest in a Beltex purebred, Guy Martin said it’s early days but the Beltex is shaping up quite nicely in its first season.
Martin, a Suftex breeder on his Greenpark property just south of Christchurch, is also a sheep genetics consultant.
“You could say I should know what the back end of a well-muscled lamb looks like and the Beltex is delivering.”
Guy said his intention when giving the Beltex a go was not to change his breed.
“All three of us that were in on the purchase are Suftex breeders so we bought to add to our breed given if everything is believed about the yield it would add a lot to our terminal sire breed.
“It was an opportunity to add something that was closely related.”
While it’s early days with 200 lambs weaned between them the trio are confident they have made a good choice.
“So far so good but it will take another season to really get some results to compare.”
Guy is planning on picking a good ram lamb from this season’s drop and putting it across all his hoggets for the 2019 lambing.
“This will add more backside and blend well with what we are doling in our breeding.
“It’s exciting, there’s no doubt about that. I do think, though, that the Beltex will play a big part in crosses and be part of a breed rather than be a whole breed in NZ and that just comes with the difference in the way we farm in NZ compared to the homeland of the Beltex in the UK.
In the first public auction of its kind in this part of the world BeltexNZ offered 16 purebred Beltex rams in 2018, the highest of which went under the hammer at $12,000 with several others selling at $7000 and $8000.
A further 48 crossbred rams comprising Beltex-Suffolk, Beltex-Poll Dorset and Beltex-Perendale were also offered and it was the Beltex-Suffolk sold for $15,000 that topped the sale.
The 2019 sale will be held at Blair Gallagher’s Rangiatea farm in the Mid Canterbury foothills on March 1.
This year, alongside the purebred ram lambs, there will also be two-tooth rams offered as well as Suffolk, Perendale and Poll Dorset crossed ram lambs.
For the first time in NZ Beltex cross two-tooth ewes and ewe lambs will also go under the hammer.
