September Newsletter 2022
We are excited to be offering 150 top quality rams for sale this year in our new woolshed. The sale will be interfaced with Auctions Plus on Monday 19th September. All these rams will be on display at the 12 Mile Field Day to be held at Gunnegalderie on Tuesday 6th September.
It’s been a great year to be in merinos with plenty of feed and good prices.
Exceptionally wet conditions have led to some challenges for sheep produces, with extra pressure on flystrike, worm burdens, sore feet and cold wet weather. Not ideal for merinos. However, having the right merinos makes these challenges much easier to deal with.
We have made the most of the wet conditions to put extra selection pressure on these traits. With regards to worms – we have made it through our second year without drenching any of our adult stud ewes, allowing us to identify any susceptible sheep and cull them out. We hope never to drench an adult stud ewe again.
THE ENTIRE 2021 DROP GUNNEGALDERIE LAMBS AVERAGED -46 FOR YWEC TOP 10% ON SHEEPGENETICS
We have also individually tested all our Ram Lambs for WEC. This has given us excellent information to put further pressure on worm resistance. We got an excellent spread on the results and have identified some of our best young rams that have tested 0 for WEC in a very high-pressure situation.
The particularly wet conditions have also allowed us to put extra pressure on feet structure. As usual we haven’t done any foot trimming on any sheep and culled heavily on anything that hasn’t handled the wet conditions.
In keeping with our philosophy on running all our sheep under commercial conditions, none of our sheep have had any supplementary feeding or licks since the end of the drought.
PUSHING FOR POLLS
We have been making a conscious effort to move to 100% polls due to buyer preference. The 2022 joining was made up of predominantly double poll sires and we hope to be able to offer an excellent line of poll rams next year.
RWS WOOL ACCREDITATION
Since getting our RWS (Responsible Wool Standards) Accreditation last year, we have also received substantial premiums for our wool. Having a plain bodied sheep with no breech wrinkle has allowed us to stop mulesing at Wellington about 12 years ago and is a major factor in being eligible for this niche market.
HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE YEAR
2021 lambing av. 130% over Wellington and Brewarrina properties.
Excellent premiums for RWS Wool.
2400 wether lambs from Brewarrina av. $242/hd (29kg dressed) straight off pasture with no supplementary feeding.
Individual WEC for young rams allowing us to give an accurate YWEC figure for anyone wanting to put pressure on that trait.
Second year of not drenching adult stud ewes.
Second year of using SmartShephard Collars to mother Stud lambs
