Stud History
Moutere Downs Romney and Poll Dorset Romney stud is located in Upper Moutere. The original part of the property, which was covered in gorse, was purchased in 1959 by the Moore bro’s Ray and John. Since that time a number of other blocks have been purchased and today we farm about 600 hectares made up of 430 ha Freehold and 170 hectares of lease which are 12 lifestyle blocks. Today we are running 3000 Romney and Poll Dorset x Ewes, 935 Ewe Hogget’s, 50 beef Cows and about 220 fattening cattle.
Breeding Philosophy
The farm has traditionally run Romney ewes with a small stud set up in 1970’s to breed our own rams. We followed the current animal health thinking of the day and drenched lambs regularly, drenched the hogget’s and ewes with long acting injections, and capsules and basically kept the drench companies in business. In the late ’90’s we decided there had to be a better way. We had read all about the onset of drench failure because of overuse It was about that time that we read an article in the Straight Furrow about a breeder in Northland who was breeding for Parasite resistance in sheep. We liked Gordon Levet’s policy of putting pressure on rams and selecting for Worm Resistance, Foot Rot Resistance and Facial Eczema tolerance. After buying his top resistant rams we have now been able to reduce drenching so that the majority of Rams for sale have never been drenched..