South Australian stud bags top honours with all-purpose Merino ram at Bendigo

A South Australian stud has bagged top honours for its all-purpose Merino ram at the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo.

Greenfields Merino and Poll Merino stud, Hallett, SA, secured the grand champion all-purpose Merino ram sash with its April 2024-drop ram.

The March-shorn ram, exhibit 619, had medium wool.

Greenfields stud principal Robert Sullivan said he was "very excited" to get the win.

"It's a very prestigious class to win," he said.

"You've got to have a ram with good testing wool and you've got to have a very meaty carcase."

Mr Sullivan said this was exactly the type of sheep Greenfields was working to breed, a dual-purpose Merino.

He said the grand champion ram stood out from an early age with its "structure and carcase".

"He's a great all-round, dual-purpose sheep," he said.

The ram had an 18.2-micron fleece, with a standard deviation (SD) of 2.6, coefficient variation (CV) of 14.5 and comfort factor (CF) of 99.8 per cent.

The reserve champion all-purpose Merino ram sash was secured by Wanganella & Poll Boonoke Merino stud, Deniliquin, NSW.

Wanganella & Poll Boonoke breeding manager Angus Munro said the May 2024-drop ram was a top sheep.

The ram had an 18.7-micron fleece, with a SD of 2.8, CV of 14.8 and CF of 99.8pc.

"I think he's a really well-balanced ram," Mr Munro said.

"He's got a very good carcase and his structure is impeccable.

"He stands really wide and has a good horn."

Mr Munro said the reserve champion did well for a horned ram, given there were "not a lot around now".

"He's got very good, soft, easy-handling wool," he said.

"He's a big, long, productive ram that ticks a lot of boxes."

He said to breed all-purpose Merinos, the Wanganella and Poll Boonoke stud focused a lot on the physical inspection of sheep.

"We're very visual in what we pick - nice, meaty, structural rams," he said.

"We also have objective measurements.

"We weigh them and eye muscle score them and use the Australian Sheep Breeding Values on them."

Mr Munro said the all-purpose Merino was perhaps the future of the breed, given the pressure coming from shedding and other meat breeds.

"We're competing against a lot of different enterprises now because we've got to make our Merino count and get the most production out of it," he said.

"I think it does have to be a real all-purpose Merino animal to really kick the goals and compete against these other breeds."

He said it was possible to breed a Merino which could do both - produce meat and wool - and described it as a "fine art".

Judge Brad Schroeder, Gunallo Poll Merino stud, Murrayville, said both the grand champion and reserve rams were exceptional.

Mr Schroeder said the champion ram was a "good all-rounder".

He said the ram's front feet were set up well and he had "density and quality" in his wool.

"The data, all the correlations together, gave him a very good score," he said.

He said the reserve ram potentially had a better fleece but didn't have the same carcase.

"He was a better-fibred sheep with less meat quality," he said.

"But he was very structurally sound."

There were no ewes included in the all-purpose Merino judging.

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