^ Elders’ Stud Stock Manager Tom Penna with Madeline, Luke and David Andriske, Galga, who bought lot 2 at our 2023 On Property Ram Sale for $9,000, held by David along with Nutrien’s Josh Nourse.

This year most South Australian farmers are experiencing one of the most challenging years they have ever had in terms of lack of rainfall and feed shortages.

We are more fortunate than many but it has been a tough year.

This years sale team have come through the difficult season well and despite the tough season they are powering ahead now.

Our intention has always been to run our rams as commercially as possible with do-ability a high priority. As much as years like this are extremely challenging it sorts the good doing sheep and we have been ruthless with all our sheep and lambs this year on their ability to stand up in condition and we have culled accordingly.

Longevity is also a trait that appeals to us, we don’t class out ewes for age if they are still fit and healthy. We commonly have plenty of ewes in the stud flock in the 5-9yrs old range. We frequently hear reports of our rams living healthily to a ripe old age.

The first 15 rams in the catalogue received additional attention to present them at major Field Days such as Bendigo, Keith, and the Classings Classic. Our team of four sale rams at the Classic made up to $10,500 and averaged $8,250. All four rams will be used in ram breeding flocks this year.

The seasonal conditions are partially reflected in the much lower microns of paddock run rams this year. The micron average of shedded rams  should be assessed separately from the paddock run rams. We are extremely pleased with the quality of the top rams which show no sign of micron blow out.

A feature of our wool clip in recent years is the all-important staple strength associated with lower-micron wool.  One line of young sheep recently testing 16.8 micron at 38 NKT.

This last year has also seen every breeding ewe in the stud micron tested with some being culled on results and a much tighter band of quality wool sheep at the top end.

We strongly believe that fertility will be one of the key profit drivers for sheep flocks in the future. Every ewe at Mernowie must rear at least one lamb every year. We do not select specifically for multiple births but this strategy commenced 35 years ago and many of our clients are reaping the rewards of increased lambing percentages. Under difficult seasonal conditions this year we have clients reporting up to 130% lambing. One first time buyer of Mernowie genetics reported 120% lambing in maidens this year, and 62% of this years catalogued rams were reared as multiples.

Many of you will have heard of the sextuplets that arrived on the 14^th June. The five surviving lambs will be on display along with their mother at our on property sale. She has been an outstanding mother and is also reflective of the milking ability of our ewes.

The shed lambing has been a valuable asset to cull ewes with temperament issues, poor milkers, and other issues like overly large or damaged teats, all of which contribute to lower lambing percentages. One AI program in the shed turned out 150% live lambs.

We entered a ram, tag 201080 (sold to Gunallo stud in 2021 Classings classic for sale top $20,000) in the Balmoral (Victoria High Rainfall) Sire Evaluation trial in 2023.

He has performed extremely well against a star studded field of sires. Although not all data has been collected as yet his progeny performed extremely well in low breech wrinkle and were visibly one of the best groups when displayed in March. 201080 have the best representation in this years sale of  any sire line we have ever used- over 1/3 of our catalogue is by him and most importantly lots at the top end.

Apart from fertility and wool traits we continue to press hard on improving growth rates plus eye muscle depth (EMD) and positive fat.

The ultimate aim is to produce a maternal, fertile animal with growth rates that will enable clients to turn off wether lambs a few months earlier than in the past and at higher dressed weights.

As is always the case we offer complimentary classing service and we have been pleased with the quality of ewe hoggets we have classed this year particularly given the really tough season and we are finding it increasingly difficult to class out the % required which is a positive.

We look forward to seeing you on sale day!