Head Shepherd

Dave Robertson is a large animal vet with Oamaru’s Vet Centre, a lifelong interest in sheep breeding and a particular focus on helping sheep and beef farmers understand and improve all elements of animal health.

Growing up in a fifth-generation farming family in West Otago, Dave developed an early interest in sheep genetics, starting with ten Romney sheep at the age of ten. After studying biochemistry at Otago, he went on to veterinary science, building experience across different farming systems and developing a particular interest in fine wool sheep.

In this episode, Dave shares wh...

What can carcass feedback tell us about breeding better lambs? 

Our guest this week, Isabele Roberts, shares how six years of carcass data, research and on-farm trials have shaped her approach to lamb production.

Isabele runs Ridgehaven, a family sheep business in New South Wales that combines a stud, commercial lamb production and a research program. With her husband, sister and brother, she manages three properties covering 3,200 hectares, focusing on breeding sheep that meet the needs of businesses further along the supply chain.

Isabele has been involved in the Gundagai Lamb program since i...

Selecting replacement ewe lambs is an opportunity to make more genetic progress in a flock, but how much are we missing when selection relies on visual assessment alone?

In this episode, Ferg shares his thoughts on improving replacement ewe selection. He explains how environmental effects can influence what we see in the yards, and why putting objective scores around those observations can lead to better selection decisions.

Ferg also explains how neXtRank accounts for environmental effects and trait heritability to rank animals against a flock's breeding objective, giving producers an opportunity to make better use...

neXtResist can tell you which sheep are fighting off worms, even when worm numbers are low. Emma Noble-Campbell has been running the test for New Zealand breeders since she joined us in February.

Emma grew up on a sheep and beef farm in the North Island, studied agricultural science at Lincoln and did her honours on worm resistance and immunity in sheep. Since joining neXtgen, she has set up our "Spit Lab" (in Ferg's garage!) and is now running neXtResist, the SwabTec saliva test, for New Zealand breeders.

Emma and Ferg talk through how the...

Join us to celebrate our 300th episode! 

For anyone lucky enough to attend LambEx this year, Gus Balbontin was one of our favourite speakers. So, when he agreed to come on for our special 300th episode, we were beyond excited.

The messages Gus shared during his talk have stuck with many. He challenged (and succeeded) in getting us to think differently and to question any long-standing assumptions we'd had. 

Gus grew up in sheep country in Patagonia before leaving Argentina at the age of 17 because of "a healthy disregard for the status quo". By...

John Yates has spent the past 18 years helping develop the British Texel Sheep Society, including bringing performance recording in house and building the iTexel database. Rather than relying on an external system, the Society has developed an evaluation around the information its breeders are collecting and the breeding goals of a terminal sire breed.

John chats with Ferg about that evolution and the thinking behind it. For him, breed development has to maintain focus on what commercial producers need from a terminal sire, which means making data easier for breeders to collect and use, putting economic value...

Our newest consultant, Reece Michelle, took a slightly roundabout route into his new role with neXtgen Agri, from studying agricultural science at Lincoln and working with Headwaters to shearing and fencing before moving across the Tasman. 

Now splitting his time between neXtgen Agri and Murdoch University, Reece chats with Ferg about his move to WA, the work he’ll be doing with sheep breeders and researchers which includes the Smart Ewe project and heat tolerance work. 

Get in touch at [email protected] if you'd like to know more about these projects or our new tool...

This episode comes from our Productivity & Profitability podcast, produced in partnership with Meat & Livestock Australia.

How do you breed a lamb that consistently delivers a better eating experience?

For decades, sheep producers have been selecting for traits they could easily measure, including growth, fertility and lean meat yield. But eating quality has remained far more difficult to quantify, despite being one of the biggest drivers of consumer satisfaction and long-term demand.

On this episode, Mark chats with David Packer, Program Manager – CarcaseValue at Meat & Livestock Australia, to explore how advances in me...

Most breeders pick one thing to improve. Peter Blackwood picked several. When he and his wife Claire took over a Corriedale stud in 2006, they committed to lifting fertility, carcass shape and wool fineness - all at once - by using ASBVs.

Two decades later, they've lifted lambing from 110% to 150%, and reduced micron from 28 to 22-24. Peter also says his sheep are shorter and stockier, with better shape and cleaner points, including bare heads. Apparently 10 years on the crutching trailers will do that to a farmer! 

The Performance Corriedale Group, which Peter helped found, conducted a t...

Looking to change your Merino genetics? What actually happens when you switch types? For our guest this week, Dom Hallam, it started with his parents.

Coming from a traditional fine wool background, they began looking for something different, eventually bringing sheep from New England into their flock. The change was rapid, and before long the sheep looked very different. His parents' willingness to try something new eventually led them into breeding their own rams and establishing the Cooee Merino stud. 

A few years ago, Dom came across a type of Merino that caught his attention w...

What is a trait actually worth to a farming business?

Ferg has spent much of his career talking about the value of genetics, but it hasn't always been easy to put that value into real dollar terms that apply to individual farming businesses.

In this episode, Ferg explains how we plan to work out the dollar value of genetic performance with the use of our new tool, neXtProfit. 

Ferg explains that it's not as simple as putting a price on an extra lamb or another kilogram of wool, because each change has a w...

What's the difference between a sheep that looks "right" and a sheep that breeds "right"? Jonno Hicks from Hannaton Poll Merinos and White Suffolks, reckons he's finally found the answer.

In this week's episode, Jonno talks through his shift from visual assessment to genomics and data-driven breeding, and why the first years weren't the easiest- despite employing a "guy in New Zealand he heard on a podcast". 

At Hannaton, they now record fleece attributes, carcass traits, structural traits and much more, and make the most of that data by using genomics and neXtgen Agri indices t...

Ever wondered what's actually happening inside an overgrown hoof? And can you fix it once the damage is done?

Our guest this week looked into just that. Dr Laura Deeming did her PhD with Massey University and AgResearch on dairy goat hoof health. Many dairy goats are not hoof trimmed until their first lactation, which, at that point, feet can already be very overgrown.

One of her key questions was whether starting trimming earlier would help lifetime foot health. Laura worked with equine vets to X-ray the internal structures of overgrown hooves pre- and post-trimming...

Willy McSkimming is modernising the shearing industry with a new app and an improved focus on wool classing and quality. After 23 years running a major contracting operation with his wife Tess, he's now doing things differently. Not happy with being left behind in comparison to other industries, and considering theres an "app for everything", Willy decided to develop an app for the shearing industry whilst healing from a knee replacement. 

Tune in to hear Willy explain what the app does, as well as his newly appointed Operations & People Lead, Nic Blanchard. 

 Check out the app her...

How do you actually pick which heifers to keep? For many, selecting the top ones is easy, but it's those middle ones that are hard to choose between. 

For this week's guest, Geoff Hayes, the answer is genomics. Geoff and his wife Belinda started their Angus stud just 5 years ago, but began their genomic journey early, not wanting to pick bulls on looks alone from the very beginning. 

"I was hesitant just to go and pick them visually," Geoff explains. "We need to put some science into it."

They began with a base ge...

Pete Fennessy has spent more than fifty years involved in science, genetics and livestock production, helping shape many of the ideas that transformed New Zealand’s sheep and deer industries. 

Pete spent two decades at Invermay before becoming General Manager of AgResearch’s Sheep, Deer and Equine Division, later founding AbacusBio alongside a group of colleagues and helping build it into an internationally recognised consultancy. More recently, his focus has turned to new challenges facing NZ agriculture, including methane, meat and the future direction of livestock production.

In this episode, Pete chats with Mark about the p...

This week on the podcast we have Joshua Barton chatting to Mark about the benefits of precision sheep management and the results it can get you. 

Josh is currently stockman at Hillcroft Farms and recently shared some great scanning results with us as the outcome of well-planned precision lambing. Josh shares these results as well as discussing how Hillcroft’s ultra-white breeding program has evolved.

Josh and Mark also cover the HF Plus gene and what it is doing for fertility and why better data is the only way forward if you want to increase you...

How do Australian and New Zealand farmers stay competitive when the rest of the world is changing faster than ever?

For our guest this week, Richard Green, it starts by accepting that yesterday's thinking will not solve tomorrow's problems.

"It frustrates the hell out of me when I hear us talk about 'We're the best farmers in the world.'" explains Richard. "And we may have been, but that's a moment in time. There's so much change, progress and disruption happening around the world. We're only as good as how we were yesterday, and every...

Long before performance recording became mainstream, George Fell's grandfather was building a sheep breeding programme around growth, efficiency and measured performance on pasture. Unable to find the genetics he wanted, he created them himself.

Today, that same mindset runs through everything at Fell's Yorkshire farming business. Alongside the Meatlinc sheep breeding programme, the family operates a diverse farming enterprise that includes Premier League-level turf production, free-range eggs and dairy beef finishing.

In this episode, George joins Mark to discuss the origins of the Meatlinc breed, the role performance recording has played in its development, and...

What does a cow actually cost to run?

At Kerin Ag, every kilogram of utilisable feed has a value attached to it. That allows Joe Kerin and the team to measure whether an animal is genuinely paying its way.

In this episode, Joe joins Mark to discuss how putting a dollar value on each kilogram of grass they grow led them to choose Wagyu over Angus. As any Kerin would, Joe has done the numbers and compared Wagyu cows with larger recipient cows, based on the weaning weight of their calves relative to the kg...

Few people have had a front-row seat to the genetic improvement of New Zealand sheep quite like our guest this week, Simon Buckley.

After growing up in Whangārei and starting his farming career at Castlepoint Station, Simon joined Wairere Romneys and has never left. Four decades later, he has helped one of New Zealand's most influential sheep breeding programmes through the transition from visual selection and paper records to EID, genomics and data-driven breeding.

In this episode, Simon chats with Mark to discuss the history of Wairere and the long-term thinking required to make m...

Most sheep producers assume their drenches are working. Chloe Frank's job is finding out whether they actually are.

After discovering how few producers in her region were monitoring worm burdens, Chloe launched Central Stock Health while still at university. She now travels from farm to farm delivering on-site worm egg counts and helping producers make better management decisions.

In this episode, Chloe joins Mark to discuss the challenge of drench resistance in Australia and why better information is often the missing piece in sheep management. She explains why the delays associated with traditional testing methods...

This week on the podcast, Ferg introduces James Trowbridge, the newest consultant to join the neXtgen Agri team.

James grew up in South Australia working alongside his parents, Margie and Bill Trowbridge, in both Merinos and the family artificial breeding business. After working across a range of farming and agribusiness roles around Australia, James now joins the neXtgen Agri team, bringing with him a strong practical background in sheep production and genetics.

If you want to get James on your team, get in touch at: [email protected]

Head Shepherd is brought to...

What does it take to build the data systems that sit behind your genetic evaluations?

This week on the podcast, Ferg catches up with Dan Garrick from Helical. Dan grew up on a sheep, beef and venison farm in the Manawatu before moving to the US at 13, where he went on to complete a PhD in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University. He's the son of Professor Dorian Garrick, one of New Zealand's most respected animal breeding geneticists, and his grandfather was one of the world's leading experts on sharks, making Dan a third-generation PhD.

...

Jane Kellock joins Mark to talk through the production and business decisions that have shaped their Merino operation in South Australia’s Mid North. From running a non-mulesed flock for more than 20 years to building a breeding programme focused on lamb survival, Jane explains how genetics, condition scoring and lessons learned from attending previous LambEx conferences have helped their business through some brutal seasons.

Jane also discusses the importance of making strategic decisions before drought hits, why mixed farming regions risk losing livestock knowledge, and what producers can expect from LambEx26.

Tickets available here: https://ww...

Matt Hood on farm succession, agribusiness banking, and building better farm businesses.

Based in Marlborough, Matt has worked across sheep and beef, dairy, and viticulture businesses in both New Zealand and Australia, with a focus on succession planning, equity partnerships, and helping farm businesses make better decisions around people, capital, and structure.

Matt explains where he sees the gap between being good on the tools and being good in business. As businesses grow, priorities shift to managing people, finances, and decision-making, and that is often where performance stalls, especially during succession. 

On that n...

You'd never ignore your interest rate, so why aren't you tracking your genetic gain? 

This week, Ferg catches up with Chad Taylor for an update on what has been happening at Mumblebone and the recent work around footrot and feet structure they have been involved with as part of the 'Genetics of foot health in Merinos' project.

Ferg and Chad also discuss genetic gain at Mumblebone and how it is being pushed in practical terms. For example they are using ram lambs more heavily, joining ewe lambs, using genomics and utilising custom indexes in selection d...

This week, Mark catches up with Will Barton from Gundagai Meat Processors (GMP) to chat about what has changed since his last appearance on the podcast and where things are heading next for Gundagai.

Gundagai has built a reputation for doing things differently, with a clear focus on eating quality and how that is measured and paid for. 

Will explains how a focus on eating quality, particularly intramuscular fat, has shaped their grid, and why balancing that with lean meat yield and animal health has been critical to maintaining consistency. Will also explains their feedback l...

This week on the podcast, Mark chats with Carol Mudford to talk about her unconventional path into the shearing sheds and the work she is now doing to help improve mental health across the industry.

Carol grew up around sheep but never planned to pick up a handpiece, starting her working life in nursing before COVID and family circumstances brought her back to the farm. When she was ready to return to nursing, Carol moved into mental health nursing within a rural suicide prevention programme, combining her experience from both the sheds and healthcare with the idea...

Bea Litchfield is Managing Director of Hazeldean, a sixth-generation family seedstock business running both Merino and Angus studs alongside commercial operations. 

Hazeldean is a large-scale seedstock business, and they produce around 600 Angus bulls and 400 Merino rams each year for clients across all kinds of environments. Their tough environment allows their stock to be put to the test and their rigorous focus on fertility, structure, temperament, growth and carcass has meant the Hazeldean name is well known around Australia.

In this episode, Bea and Mark discuss their approach to breeding seedstock, which involves harsh winters and a...

Join Mark and our guest this week, Dr Shane Thomson, to discuss some key points around reproductive performance in cattle. 

Shane is a veterinarian and partner at Holbrook Vet Centre in southern New South Wales, leading a team of 10 vets across a practice that's roughly 90% beef production.

Cattle reproduction work is at the core of what Shane does daily, and in this episode, he and Mark cover pretty much everything. Including bull soundness, AI, embryo transfer, IVF, how to improve pregnancy rates in beef herds, what a pre-breeding bull soundness evaluation actually involves, how to p...

This week on the podcast, Professor Wayne Pitchford joins Mark Ferguson to discuss all things cow condition. 

Wayne has spent more than three decades at the University of Adelaide working across animal breeding, genetics and livestock production, and is currently Director of the Davies Livestock Research Centre.

Wayne and Mark discuss his recent research on the relationship between early body measures and adult traits like fertility and condition score, including why young animal data explains only a small part of cow performance. They also cover fat distribution across different depots and what that means for s...

This week on the podcast, Mark (Ferg) catches up with Andrew Kennedy (Ox) and Darren Gordon (Cat) to reflect on their early years together as well as the career and influence of Dr Andrew “Thommo” Thompson. The episode is part of Podcasthon, supporting efforts to raise awareness for brain cancer research.

Ferg, Cat and Ox reminisce about the early days of the Lifetime Ewe research project and the realities of running a large-scale sheep research under the legendary Andrew Thompson. This was before the use EID, which meant recording thousands of pasture measurements and condition scores by hand...

Choosing replacement heifers shapes the productivity of a breeding herd for years to come.

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast, James Starling joins Mark Ferguson to discuss the 'Optimised Heifer Selection' project, which focuses on combining genomic tools with visual assessment to improve heifer selection. 

Based on the Limestone Coast in South Australia, James runs a self-replacing Angus herd alongside a prime lamb enterprise. After two decades working in global financial markets, he returned to farming with a strong focus on data, value and decision making.

In this conversation, James explains why i...

This week on the podcast, Shannon Donoghue joins us to talk about why she's so passionate about telling the story of wool. 

Growing up on a sheep property in South Australia, Shannon started off in the industry as a wool classer before stepping into her current role as an industry relations officer with AWI. Her work now involves helping producers better understand where levy investment goes and ensuring their feedback shapes research, development and marketing.

Alongside that, Shannon has built a significant following online, sharing drone footage and, more recently, "Weekly Wool Facts", a series t...

How much do you hate daggy sheep? Well, what started as a frustration with daggy sheep ended up reshaping this week's guest’s entire farming system.

This week, Allan Richardson explains how his determination to eliminate daggy sheep ultimately led to three decades of organic farming and the adoption of regenerative principles.

He began by wanting to select for low dag score, but a local vet encouraged him to focus instead on worm resistance. Selecting for worm resistance made organic certification achievable. From there, Organic farming opened the door to regenerative principles focused on soil bi...

Tune in this week on the Head Shepherd podcast to hear Ferg discuss the 2025/2026 ram sale period across Australia and New Zealand. He explains his approach to selecting the right ram team and the decisions breeders have been facing when producing rams for sale in an increasingly data-driven market.

Ferg discusses the breeding values gaining attention, as well as buyer behaviour when information is available AND when it is missing. 

He also explains the neXtPredict tool developed in partnership with Weatherbys and how it can support producers who want to better understand the genetic merit o...

Are you heading to LambEx26? This week on the podcast we have LambEx chair, Jamie Heinrich, on the podcast to discuss one of the sheep industry’s largest gatherings, bringing together producers, researchers, service providers and supply chain leaders from around the world.

Held at the Adelaide Convention Centre, the event covers productivity, profitability, genetics, sustainability and the future direction of the sheep and lamb sector. 

Tune in to hear more about how you can join the conversation at LambEx.

Tickets on sale now:

https://www.lambex.org.au...

Our guest this week, Angus Street, has worked across journalism, global agricultural marketing, Asian supply chains and livestock trading before stepping into the role of CEO at New Zealand Merino. In this episode, Angus reflects on taking on the role and guiding the organisation through a period of ongoing change across wool markets and supply chains.

He and Mark chat about New Zealand Merinos’ role in connecting growers directly with global brands, the thinking behind ZQ and ZQRX and also the impact of long-term contracts for farmers. Angus also shares where he sees the next real shifts co...

How do you breed sheep that thrive in wet coastal hill country without routine drenching? What traits actually matter when you're selecting for challenging conditions? This week on the podcast, Mark is chatting to Fred Gane, who runs Kaituna Ridges, an 800-hectare farm near Havelock and the Pelorus Sound in the South Island of New Zealand, alongside his wife Nikita.

Kaituna Ridges comprises a mixed grazing operation that includes over 5,000 Romney sheep and 200 head of cattle, as well as a Romney stud. Fred breeds dual-purpose Romneys that thrive in their wet, coastal hill country conditions. They focus...