I am farm manager on a 3,000- head sheep and 200-head cow calf property at Greta in north east Victoria, Australia. Annual rainfall here is 650mm.

It has been very wet this year, with 102mm falling in July and 300mm falling over May, June and July. Cows are about to start calving now and will calve for six weeks. We have finished lambing the mature ewes and the ewe lambs are lambing now.

They are joined at eight to nine months of age and this year scanned at 142% as ewe lambs, something we were very happy with.

I am doing Pedigree Match Maker (PMM) again this year on the second- lambing ewes. This is a process which links ewes and lambs using RFID tags by them passing a scanner in a yard of either feed, water or both.

By repetition of the tags appearing together, the lambs can be linked with the ewes.

I will weigh the lambs at weaning to get a litter weight weaned. This can then be compared with the liveweight of the ewe for ewe efficiency measure (kg of lamb weaned per kg of ewe bodyweight). I also got a lamb marking weight this year on all lambs to monitor growth rates and predict finishing times better.

We are very focused on production, in particular maternal efficiency as well as product feedback.

We tracked 1,900 carcases through the abattoir this year to get individual feedback such as carcase weight, lean meat yield, fat, and because I had a liveweight, dressing percentage.

We also got feedback on out-of-spec product and whether this was due to fat cover or carcase weight.

We recently had 250 people visit the farm as part of Lambex. It was an opportunity to share knowledge and ideas with fellow farmers to show what we do.

Lambex is a biannual sheep industry event that attracts 1,000 producers and industry people from across the world. It is two days of conferences/lectures and a day of bus tours to farming businesses nearby.

Market prices

Things are going along pretty well in terms of market prices. The per-capita consumption of red meat in Australia has gone down in recent years but overseas demand is lifting. Animal welfare and how it is perceived by the customer, seasonal risk and variation and cost of production are all ongoing concerns for those farming sheep and cattle in Australia.

There is great opportunity to create great products as technology becomes more accurate and relevant.

The opportunity lies in paying more attention to detail. My top 25% of ewes are twice as efficient as the bottom 25% of ewes (in terms of lambs weaned per ewe liveweight), so there is still lots we can do to breed, grow and manage a better animal and a better system.