The Lamb's journey
Capacity building - LEP23 - 014_LLC01_6
The issue
We are in the heart of livestock farming and mixed farming operations, and our local farmers are always looking for opportunities to better manage their businesses. With Gundagai Meats not far away from Boorowa, many of our sheep livestock producers are sending their finished stock down to Gundagai Meat Processors (GMP). We wanted to offer an opportunity for those producers to see first-hand the facility and the technology they use when processing lambs.
The solution
We conducted a one-day bus trip for a small group of members to travel down to Gundagai for a day focused on lamb production. We spent a morning with two guest speakers, Sally Martin from SheepmetriX and Jock Munro from Coolac Veterinary Services. Our speakers covered topics such as genetics, EID, animal management practices and common animal health conditions, particularly those detected on the processing floor. The discussion was very in depth and interactive, with all attendees requesting a follow up workshop to continue those discussions.
Following this we then went to Gundagai Meat Processors for a fully guided information session and tour. The tour of the processing plant and its state-of-the-art technology was excellent and followed on very well from the morning conversations. Seeing and understanding the new processing technologies, opened conversations around types/breeds of lambs, methods of raising and managing those animals and new target markets that are now becoming available to us.
The impact
A better understanding.
It's one thing to produce an animal with what we believe to be good practices, but to see and understand the handling of that animal during processing and how we can adapt management practices to maximise quality of that animal was the next level. Also having in depth conversations relating to the feedback data from processing and how management practices can be changed to achieve a better result. The producers walked away with many ideas on how to improve their current enterprises and some insight into the future of lamb markets, shaping any potential enterprise changes they may be considering.