They put ‘Jingle in the Till’
The McLellan family farm at Rand in NSW, undertake cropping and sheep enterprises on their 2030 hectare Ferndale property, yet for the last 25 years they have travelled west to the Pocock family to purchase their breeding rams. At the last Lampata ram sale, after they purchased six top rams, Barry McLellan said, “We travel the distance necessary to purchase the rams that consistently do the job for us.”
They annually crop 1420 hectares of wheat, barley, triticale and canola, leaving 610ha open for sheep production. On that they run 1300 Lampata blood Poll Merino ewes, half in a self-replacing breeding program and half mated to Poll Dorsets to produce prime lambs.
The ewes are mated to lamb down in April. Running on basic native species pasture in their 350 to 400mm rainfall country, Barry said they consistently produce 115% lambs and up to 120%.
“They get very little supplementary feeding. We look after them very well, but naturally; certainly no grain other than stubble grazing to finish the lambs,” Barry said.
The finished prime lambs are sold around the January long weekend period in the Wagga saleyard. They are sold on a per head basis where consistently good lambs receive top buying competition. With an estimated average carcase weight of around 26kg, their 2014 Poll Dorset sired lambs sold for $145 to $150/head.
“Our Merino wether lambs were about $20 to $30 behind, but they measure up fairly well. Now I’m just a ridgy didge type of guy, I’m not going to brag, but without any doubt, these Lampata bloodline sheep are very, very good. They are real dual purpose sheep – there is not a fault in them that I can find. The ewes cut about 5.8kg of 69 to 70 percent yielding fleece wool after rearing lambs. They have great fertility, growth, you name it; they’ve got it,” Barry said.
“They also have the genetic capacity to go through tough times and we’ve had a few of them up here, yet they recover so quickly. When the season changes for the better they really blossom.”
“We had quite a lot of our rainfall in the summer months in the last decade, yet we’ve had no body strike problems.”
“I’m sure there are people who get better prices than us, but we run a low cost enterprise. It is the margin you clear that matters.”
“We are very happy. Whether assessing in fertility, wool or carcase these sheep are productive all round performers. They put a jingle in the till’,” Barry concluded.
