The role of a Livestock Breeding Consultant with Henry Hickson

This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Henry Hickson, our Livestock Breeding Consultant in Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia.

Henry grew on a mixed far near Boomi, New South Wales, Australia- aka an hour north of the middle of nowhere. With his dad breeding his own Merino rams, the start of a genetics addiction began at a young age. Henry then went on to study at UNE and after a stint working in farm benchmarking, applied for a consulting role with neXtgen Agri.

Henry is servicing predominantly the Victoria and NSW regions of Australia but is also involved with businesses in WA, SA and Tasmania.  From flock assessment, to ram selection, Henry also helps individuals tailor indexes to their individual needs and desires.

"We have a few indexes now that are slightly (read very) different to the industry MP and DP+" Says Henry.

In this work, Henry will be taking into account up to  16 different traits and creating a custom index that moves all of the traits in the desired direction. 

Both Mark and Henry are enthusiastic about welfare traits in sheep, and discuss how the wet summer in NSW has put additional pressure on sheep in regards to fleece rot, body strike and worm burdens.   They discuss how these conditions provide an ideal opportunity to select the most resistant animals. 

You can contact Henry at
[email protected] or +61 499 237  985

If you'd like to hear more from Henry or Mark, we will be running our third cohort of the Growing Ewe Masterclass in March, 2022. If you would like to find out more, contact us at [email protected]

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