THE region’s finest lamb was showcased at this year’s Swan Hill Show.
Record entries saw 129 lambs take centre stage for the prime lamb competition, which featured both hook and hoof classes.
The Central Murray Best Wool/Best Lamb initiative has been a regular fixture at the Swan Hill show since 2014 and has continued to evolve.
This year’s Prime Lamb competition made history, and in what was a ground-breaking move, Swan Hill became the first state-wide competition to utilise Meat Standards Australia’s “sheep meat cut by cooking method” model to judge entries.
Co-ordinator of the Central Murray Best Wool/Best Lamb Group Rick Ellis said the new model was an exciting turning point and marked a first for the Australian sheep meat industry, and he agreed with predictions that it was set to revolutionise the sheep meat industry.
The model uses three eating quality measures on each carcase.
“The model looks at the evenness of weight, intramuscular fat and lean meat yield, with the use of a muscle scanner probe,” Mr Ellis said.
He said the model was a long time coming for the industry, which in the past had relied on subjective measurements based purely on human judgment.
“These objective measures will take the guesswork out of it,” Mr Ellis said, adding judges were no longer “judging a book by its cover”.
“This is groundbreaking for the industry and Australia, and a sign of things to come.”
The model ensures lamb producers are aligned with other agricultural products, including beef and wool producers.
“The cattle industry has had a meat grading system in place for years,” Mr Ellis said.
“This has not been the case for sheep – a lamb is a lamb.”
With many local producers keen to take advantage of the new technology, this year’s competition resulted in record entries across the region, including Boort, Piangil, Kyalite, Wakool, Moulamein and Murrabit.
“The competition went really well and it was pretty interesting,” Mr Ellis said.
“The quality of the lambs was very good and the presentation was excellent.”
Aggregate points were used to determine the winner in each class, with each entry featuring a team of three lambs.
Uondo Pastoral won the Champion Prime Lamb Pen on Hoof, while DI Gitsham and Sons placed second.
IC and KL Gibson and Son won the Champion Prime Lamb Pen on Hook with Mulholland Poll awarded reserve champion.
