By Grace Jones | posted on July 13, 2018
DENMARK College of Agriculture is set to bring its sheep enterprise class in to the 21st century following the appointment of nationally recognised sheep grazing expert Michael Hyder as the head of the program.
Mr Hyder is known in the industry for managing the acclaimed Lifetime Wool and Lifetime Materials research projects for the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
In his approach to sharing his wealth of sheep information Mr Hyder said his vision was to ground students in the basics of pasture and animal production.
“If you understand why pastures and sheep grow like they do, then you will have much more success managing them,” he said.
“I’ll highlight the role of grazing management to improve sheep production.”
Mr Hyder said he plans to introduce more technology and innovation to the college.
“Graduating students will be well versed in the technological tools being used by advanced sheep producers,” he said.
“We have amazing technology available today such as satellite estimations of feed on offer to assist with feed budgeting.
“There’s bluetooth technology to match up stud ewes with their lambs and flexible fencing to make sheep graze where and when we want them to.
“We just need to put it all together.”
Building on the high tech approach to sheep industry education, the College will attend and exhibit at LambEx in Perth early next month.
College principal Kevin Osborne said he wanted the school to showcase their standards of sheep industry training.
“It’s important to us that we set the standard whilst also offering a quality university entry pathway at one fifth the cost of private schools,” he said.
