VISIT TO LA MAGDALENA. Sunday, april 8th
“Los Tordos S.C” is the Family Company that owns “La Magdalena, which is located 65 km east of Salto, in the northern region of Uruguay.
La Magdalena started the exploitation of the land in 1991 with a traditional livestock production system. In the beginning they had a beef cattle Hereford herd and a Corriedale commercial sheep flock. Soon after that, in 1992, the Merino breed was incorporated in the farm.
Today, La Magdalena carries out a livestock/cropping production system that combines the production of beef cattle and sheep. Beef cattle herds belong to the Hereford and Angus breeds, with a full cycle system and sales of bulls as well as fat cows and steers. Commercial and ram breeding flocks of the Merino and Corriedale breeds are kept.
Regarding the cropping system, it includes the production of rise seeds, commercial soybean, corn and sorghum, with a grain drying plant and silos for storing grain. Corn and sorghum are utilized internally for feeding beef and sheep, and also for sale.
LA Magdalena is located in an area very rich in water resources, with very good natural provision of water (creeks) and deep wells of very high yields. In addition several water dams have been constructed to provide stability to the whole production system.
For more than 20 years, La Magdalena has been involved in developing a good sheep genetic improvement program, with the incorporation of good genetic materials from our country as well as Australia, where we imported a high number of merino ewes and rams. La Magdalena is presently involved in a program of embryo transfer, and AI with fresh and frozen semen (intrauterine)
The sheep genetic improvement plan has been using objective measurements of important traits and also we participate in the national genetic evaluation of the breed (EBVs). This allows our merino ram breeding flock to be placed in a very good level of production and an important sale of rams.