Names:
Jock and Hamish McLaren
Property:
Nerstane, New England NSW
Annual Rainfall:
800 mm
Main farming activities:
Merino wool and stud
Size of the enterprise:
2500 hectares
Number of sheep:
10,000
“It’s great to put a mob of
capsuled sheep onto a paddock
you know has worms, because
it cleans up the paddock.”
worms and it’s a big, big problem in the
New England district with its high summer
rainfall worms that ‘take no prisoners.’ Either
they’re managed properly, or the sheep dies.
It’s as simple as that,” Jock explains.
Walcha
You can’t make it as a sheep farmer in
the high summer rainfall area of the
New England district of NSW without
effectively managing ‘barbers pole’ and
‘black scour’ – not to mention a host of
other lethal parasites.
Jock McLaren and his older brother
Hamish “got serious” about parasite
management about 15 years ago
including keeping accurate records of
worm counts and running a proactive
management plan and regular pasture
rotations. They’re especially excited by
the latest capsule release from Merial –
Dynamax.
“Effective management of parasites is
critical. There are people getting out of
sheep because they can no longer use any
drenches. They’ve badly managed their
Wool growing represents the other 50%
of their business. “My grandfather and
dad started the place in 1964 based on
a medium wool merino and slowly bred
the wool finer and Hamish and I’ve just
continued on from them,” he explains.
The brothers’ property, ‘Nerstane’ near
Walcha (located approximately midway
between Tamworth and Armidale),
has carved out quite a reputation as
an innovative merino stud, hosting a
now highly successful ram sale on the
property each January.
The really big breakthrough for Jock
and Hamish came with including Merial
capsules in their drench rotation parasite
management plan, and the pair has
scheduled Dynamax into their plans
for this year.
“We started showing sheep in 1996 and
we won with a Junior Champion Ram in
Sydney and since then we’ve won several
Supreme Awards in Sydney and a ram of
ours sired the Australian Ram of the Year last
year,” says Jock.
“We started using them pre-lambing to give
the ewes a good start and so we didn’t have
to worry about going near them during
lambing, which gave us terrific results.
They’re the best sheep I’d say we’ve ever had
coming off the capsules.
The property has been operational for
over 50 years and Jock reckons he and his
brother are definitely “kicking some goals.”
“This year, because we’ve been having such
a wet summer we’ve also used them in the
sale rams to keep them and their paddocks
clean as well. It’s great to put a mob of
capsuled sheep on a paddock you know has
worms because it cleans up the paddock.”
“We’re in a high rainfall area so there’s a
hell of a lot of burden on the worm side of
things but also fleece rot so we’ve bred very
fleece-rot resistant sheep to handle the
conditions. And that’s where we’re getting
a lot of our clientele from at the moment
– farmers who want that ‘easy care sheep’
without having to pour chemical over them
all the time to keep the flies away,” he says.
“We’ve become good at using capsules
– so it’s no harder than drenching a mob
of sheep really. They’re a great tool for
managing the farm for worms, and that’s
really everything we want,” Jock concludes.