A Brief History

The Te Rakau Texel Stud was established in 1994 with 5 embryos from the Australian Texel Corporation.

Since then, Te Rakau has broadened the genetic base of their flock with the purchase of frozen embryos and semen at the Australian Texel Corporation closing sale, and with extensive use of embryo transfer and artificial insemination.

All of the genes used by the Australian Texel Corporation originated from Denmark and Finland via New Zealand. The sheep evolving from this gene pool are developing into heavily muscled, free moving animals well suited to the Australian environment.

Stud Breeding Principles

The main strengths of the Texel breed are carcass meat yield and conformation.
Signals feeding back from the marketplace indicate an increasing emphasis on the importance of these traits in creating maximum return for producers.

Results for Te Rakau Texels in carcass competitions over the recent few years have shown their rams capable of producing lambs with these important traits. In 2000, Te Rakau lambs produced the highest yielding entry in the Wagin Woolorama Prime Lamb competition - averaging 44.3kg liveweight, resulting in 24.3kg carcass - a yield of 54.7%.

These lambs were drawn from Te Rakau's commercial prime lamb flock of first and second cross lambs, the remainder of which were processed commercially to produce similar results. These carcasses are attractive to producers for a number of reasons :

1) Higher yields result in increased saleable meat.

2) Increased muscle to bone ratio produces better muscle conformation.

3) Better muscle conformation allows the processor more flexibility in their cuts.

The same bloodlines used by Te Rakau to sire the carcass competition winners predominate throughout their stud flock. The new bloodlines introduced to the Te Rakau stud several years ago are now showing great influence on the depth of breeding within the flock.