Charollais Sheep Genetics in a Suffolk Stud

Ram breeder Chris Hampton and wife Annabelle have enthusiastically incorporated the Charollais sheep breed into their Suffolk and South Suffolk breeding business.

The Charollais is a breed of sheep originating in east central France, in the same region as the cattle. It has a reputation for easy lambing and is used as a terminal sire to increase muscling and growth rate of the lambs. It has been exported internationally, and is commonly used in the UK as a sire to produce market lambs from pure-bred ewes and crossbreds.

The breed was first introduced into New Zealand in 2009 with regular subsequent importations of embryos, semen and live animals. The only source available to New Zealand has been Australia where an importation from the UK was made in 2005.

The New Zealand population of Charollais sheep is increasing by embryo transfer of pures and grading-up from highly ranked and proven breeds in NZ.

The animal’s head is pinkish-brown and is usually free of wool but may have a fine covering of pale coloured hair. The carcass is long in the back, wedge shaped and well-muscled. The breed is fine boned making for a high killing out percentage.

The Waterton stud was established by Chris Hampton’s father Peter in 1971. The original stud was on a property on coastal Mid Canterbury. In 2008 the family sold that farm to dairy farmers and moved to Belmont Station at Cave, South Canterbury.

Belmont Station is 800ha of steep to rolling hill country ranging from 165 to 500m above sea level.

The original focus was Suffolks with an emphasis on producing rams for hill country properties. The objective says Chris is produce an easy lambing, fast growing, well-muscled and moderate framed animal that can thrive on hill country.

A decade ago an agricultural exchange student from Canada piqued Chris and his wife Annabelle’s interest in Charollais sheep. At the time foot and mouth restrictions prohibited them from bringing the breed into the country, but a few years later they were able to import embryos from Australia and start their own Charollais stud.

The Hamptons currently run 3100 ewes at Belmont. Three hundred and sixty of the ewes are from their stud flocks. The main commercial flock is Perendales, but the stud nowadays consists of Suffolks, South Suffolks and the Charollais and Charollais Crosses.

Chris says the Charollais are a straight-out meat breed and produce a lamb that is well suited to the industry. He says they grow fast and have meat in all the right places. They have a very well-muscled carcass and exceptionally high meat yields.

Chris says the Charollais was part of the Alliance CPT trial and came out number 10 for growth rate out of all breeds. He says there was also some work done comparing Suffolk, a Charollais and Charollais Suffolk carcasses. In that work the Suffolk had the best growth rate; the Charollais Suffolk yielded better and the Charollais had the superior hindquarters.

The stud is one of only four Charollais studs in the country. They have had the breed for five lambings. They started with inserting embryos into Romney cross ewes, then repeated the process again the following year. Two years ago they took embryos from six of their top-end Charollais ewes and flushed 95 embryos, far more than expected. These were inserted into the Border Romney ewes.

Chris says they have also mated a Suffolk ewe to a Charollais ram and each year put the Charollais back across the progeny to get closer to a purebred.

“Once we get over 87 per cent we can call them purebred. We haven’t reached that stage yet.”

The majority of Chris’ ram clients are in the MacKenzie Country and Central Otago. Waterton Suffolk rams are traditionally mated to merino ewes.

The Hamptons have been selling Charollais Suffolk rams for the past couple of years and have been getting good feedback from the buyers. The trial work on the lambs is backed up by those using them commercially. The hindquarters on the animals are particularly noteworthy as is growth rates.

A highlight for the Chris and Annabel was winning the Sire of the Future class at the recent show in the McKenzie Basin.

Chris says that in days past, it used to be that the biggest and prettiest animal won; now it’s the most functional and commercial. He says the Charollais class reflects that. “It shows we are breeding animals the industry wants.”

Waterton Stud runs an annual ram sale each year in December. In 2016 it will be held on 13 December.