The Gums - Stevenson Genetics

31/08/2026

Ewe hoggets made their way in yesterday so they are handy for shearing later this week.

20/08/2026

Yearling weight time for Quarterbred and Merino Ram hoggets

Although they are still 3 weeks short of their birthday we grabbed a yearling weight on the ram hoggets yesterday.

They came in at average of 62.9kg.

On its own that’s pretty satisfying, but when you take into account what these guys have had thrown at them it shows the level of productivity, resilience and all round durability of these guys.

We have had an intense focus on ensuring these fellas can handle what’s thrown at them, including

- an intense and long lasting worm challenge
- an ongoing footrot challenge

They have had a long list of measurements completed

- weaning weight
- autumn weight
- worm challenge and individual FEC
- footrot challenge and score
- eye muscle and fat scan (while in the midst of worm and foot challenge)
- dag score
- yearling weight

…and with shearing next week that’ll bring in a whole suite of wool assessment

Then we bring in selection pressure
- using the data collected, along with focussed visual quality and structural assessment we will cut this mob in half

Only those that are good enough across the board advance to selection for sale

We invest the time, effort and cost so our clients can advance the genetic worth and performance of their flocks.

Resilience - Productivity - Profitability - Fun to Farm

12/08/2026

Today Ian Stevenson and I got the Mixed Age Terminal Halfbred and Quarterbred ewes out on the hill all sorted for lambing.

With them scanning 190%, it's all about setting them up as well as we can for a successful result on the truck later in the year.

28/07/2026

Last week we took DNA samples from 550 Quarterbred, Halfbred and Poll Merino stud ewes

…. a large investment of
- time ⏰
- effort 💪
- and money 💰

But something we do to ensure we can deliver leading genetics to NZ fine and mid-micron farmers

27/05/2026

It was great to have a yarn with Dom at Rural Exchange earlier this week.

We talked about our experience with Halter to date, how we have approached the adoption of this technology and our key learnings.

Have a listen if you are interested.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ddENvjpEZxZfJH0uRFKPL?si=4_ZUeDmwSbW-_dyFaO8EWQ&ct=1149&t=1174

REX · Episode

26/05/2026

Worm 🪱 Resistance!

We have had a big couple of days here collecting 💩 samples from 378 ram hoggets – all Quarterbred, Poll Merino and Stabilised Halfbred ram hoggets were sampled. It was very satisfying to get to that last one today

It’s taken us a while to get to this point – with the young fellas refusing to succumb to a worm challenge.

They were drenched on 28th January, and then regularly monitored as we tried to get their worm counts high enough to conduct individual sampling. This proved challenging, with counts bumbling along on the 200’s for over 90 days post drench, prior to jumping in the last 2 weeks.

This worm challenge data will provide us with information on how our ram hoggets have handled a worm challenge without being drenched for 118 days! ⏳We are pretty chuffed with that.

They have been challenged on multiple counts, as we were also trying to get a footrot 🦶challenge going over the same period – this took a while to happen to, and we were finally able to score them all last week.

All this has happened in a season that well and truly wetter 💦 than usual, with ideal conditions for worms to thrive and footrot to take off 📈– but it hasn’t.

These are traits that aren’t “add on’s” for us – they are inbuilt.