CRAIGMORE STATION

Highland Texel Farm continues working successfully with Craigmore Station, Maungati, near Timaru, supplying them with Texel ram lambs.

Will Thomson, the stock manager at Craigmore, uses the Texel rams in his breeding program, crossing them with Romney-Texel ewes. This crossbreeding creates lambs that do well in many different conditions. In favourable conditions, Will can finish the lambs to 23kg CW making sure they are high-quality prime lambs ready for market.

When sent to the freezing works, these crosses yield well (in terms of live weight to carcass weight), therefore they do not need to go to high live-weights to achieve high carcass weights.

Will also praises the Texels for being easy to handle, especially during mustering and yard work. The breed's smart nature makes them less stressful to manage compared to other breeds, which helps things run more smoothly on the farm; especially important with young staff.

Additionally, Texels are known for needing little extra care. They have low dag scores and minimal belly wool, so there's less time spent on shearing or maintenance making them a great choice for a productive and easy-to-manage breeding program.

In addition to Craigmore's home-bred lambs they also purchase store lambs for finishing. They have managed many different breeds and crosses and find that the Texel-cross out performs most of these, but is on a par with the Suff-Tex. However, no maternal breeds compare. Ten years ago, David introduced Texel to the high-fertile Romney flock. Despite Texels generally having lower lambing percentages, it has not affected the highly-fertile Romney flock percentages.
Texel-cross lambs ready for the works. Recorded weight of one of the lambs.
​All lambs over 50kgs were destined for the works.