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Genetics company Deer Improvement has been hunting for outstanding stags and appears to be right on target. Most of the top ranking venison stags available have been snapped up by the company which aims to test, select, improve, and supply top genetics to commercial farmers wanting to lift productivity.

Geneticist Jake Chardon says there were several bloodlines of particular interest that had not been secured in the company’s spending spree during the 2004 stag sales when they topped the market with a $39,000 purchase from Black Forest. “We are particularly interested to find out just how good the Nicholai line is, and his sons Cadiz and Maximillian were high on our list”.

Chardon says the AgResearch Invermay Sire Reference results provided an invaluable tool to evaluate animals from different studs. “The list only became available the day before Christmas so unfortunately most farmers weren’t aware of it, but it is exactly what the industry needs to provide objective data on the value of genetics”.

The Deer Improvement team was particularly impressed by the Doncaster offering. Breeder Lindsay Doncaster of Southland passed away only months ago but Chardon is clearly impressed with his work. “Lindsay has left a tremendous legacy for the industry. He was not big on marketing and hype so the auction prices are not at the high end of the scale, but the Breeding Values certainly are. Three Cadiz sons were the highest stags available in the country on the Invermay list and we bought the lot”.

Maximillian will also be well represented in the Deer Improvement programme following some detective work by Chardon who tracked down two outstanding animals not actually offered for sale. One of these is a Maximillian son originally sold for $20,000 by Stanfields Bushey Park whose catalogue proclaimed him the “superstag” of the 2004 sale. Another is a Maximillian grandson so represents another generation of progress. This spiker’s yearling weight eclipsed his contemporaries by 25kg and he was named Goldstein by Joe Crowley of Tower Farms who bred him.

Yet another Maximillian son was purchased at Black Forest, and Deer Improvement once again topped this sale, this time with a Kabul son out of a Lazlo daughter from Brusnik’s dam. Deer Improvement also took the opportunity to sample the Romeo line, taking home a son out of a full sister to Kabul.

The Remarkables Park Stud has long emphasised growth rate in its selection criteria and this year’s offering will be represented in the Deer Improvement programme by an outstanding Vihar son with Bismark in the pedigree.

Jake Chardon is quick to point out that some of the most exciting genetics are being secured in the form of semen or contract matings with elite hinds. “For example our breeding goal is very much the same as that of Landcorp so it’ll come as no surprise that semen is moving both ways between the two programmes.

“What we find really exciting is that the generation interval in deer is so short that we don’t have to wait long to see progress. We’ll have weaning weight Breeding Values out of our progeny test in about two weeks, and semen from spiker stags we’ve bred only twelve months from now”.