Mr Starritt said buying Womboota-bred Border Leicester rams offered the chance for commercial sheep breeders to sell a branded product from their farm.
“We’re offering to prime lamb breeders the opportunity to buy breeding ewes that with good management deliver high lambing percentages, early sale of progeny and an easy-care ewe that does not require expensive management regimes to deliver profits,” he said.
Mr Starritt said the stud delivered trusted rams for the prime lamb industry in four ways:
- Benchmarking. The stud always searches for genetics that can improve its own flock and compares genetics.
- Letting nature take its course. Womboota Border Leicesters run stud ewes with a commercial structure. It does not “mollycoddle” its sheep — they lamb down without interference to establish their real value to the industry: “If they lose a great lamb, they’re not a great mother.”
- Measurement. The stud measures birth weights, maternal behaviour scores, lambing conditions, weaning, early post weaning, post weaning and yearling weights, fat and eye muscle depths, wool weights and mature ewe weights and condition scores all to make sure that sheep within the stud are selected for maximum profitability for clients.
“We care about our clients’ businesses,” he said.
“We are not in the business of selling as many rams as we can.
“Our clients need to be successful with their own breeding programs and we make sure they’re happy with their rams long after the auctioneers gavel has fallen.
“We measure the success of our stud by the success of our clients.”
Twenty-five young stud-ready ewes will also be offered for stud Border Leicester breeders wishing to add some ewes to their flocks.
The on-property sale will be held at 1pm at the 3783 Perricoota Rd, Womboota.
For more information, see the ad in this week’s Country News.
