Online bids from three states dominate Bundara Downs' shedding ram sale

Prime lamb breeders were selective at Bundara Downs' fourth Ultrawhite ram sale at Western Flat, but waved their hands high for the clean shedding types.

In previous years Steve, Ros, Greg and Selena Funke have held the auction for their shedders about a month later after their main spring sale of their terminal sires, but this year rescheduled it to the day prior to their White Suffolk, Poll Dorset and Suffolk offering, which is one of the largest meat sheep sales in SA.

Many of the sheep were still in the process of shedding which may have made a difference to the result.

Fourty-one rams of 99 offered topped at $6200 and averaging $2210.

In comparison in 2024, 48 of 72 rams averaged $1448.

An embryo-transfer bred ram, BD245066, kicked the sale off strongly with Anden stud principal Joel Donnan, Vic, securing back some of his genetics for $6000.

The March 2024-drop, which was sired by Anden 221488, had plenty of length and carcase. It was also ranked in the top 5 percent on Sheep Genetics for shearforce and top 20pc of eye muscle depth and intramuscular fat.

"He is a ram that we probably should have kept but we couldn't handle using any more rams from the dam's side," Steve said.

Surpassing this a few lots later was lot 8, which sold to Matt and Tanya Tonissen, Chrome Sheep Studs, Hamilton, Vic, for $6200 - the sale high.

Another son of A221488, the ram had plenty of presence.

Mr Tonissen, who is a well known composite breeder, said he had started a shedding program with his maternal strain and have their third drop of lambs.

"We have invested pretty hard in ET and have about 600 F1's, initially we just wanted to get wool off and I want to keep carcase on our shedders, hence coming here and looking at Ultrawhites," he said.

"I have used a Bundara Downs ram via AI a couple of years ago and he has bred really well so I wanted to come back and top it up."

Mr Tonissen said they were in danger of losing market share if they hadn't acted to offer their clients a shedding option.

"Our clients like our Chrome sheep but they are irritated by the shearing component," he said.

"We don't necessarily have to go the the same performance we just need to be able to make the same amount of money per hectare - when the shedding sheep can compete with that a lot more people will head in that direction."

Mr Tonissen described the lot 8 ram as "clean shedding and having beautiful thickness across his loin".

Chrome also bought lot 32 for $3600.

There were twice as many buyers logged onto AuctionsPlus (up to 27 users) as there were in the stands at the sale.

Nineteen lots sold online, including seven to Nathan Kerin, Kerin Food & Fibre, Narromine, NSW. These averaged $1629.

In the stands, Hilton Park Lagoon secured eight rams for a $2700 average.

Steve Funke said it would have been nice to achieve a higher clearance but there were plenty of positives from the sale.

"The breed only hit the market in 2021 so we are starting to gain growth especially selling to NSW and Cunnamulla in Qld and they were determined so they were obviously happy with what they saw," he said.

He said the Ultrawhites' easy care attributes had them well placed in the industry.

"A lot of people are using them over their Merinos, which I never thought would happen," Steve said.

"I think the wool job was suggesting if you run a shedder in your paddock your whole farm would be downgraded but from what I am hearing a lot out around that Balranald area are putting them over Merinos. The lambs are finishing and they are still getting a Merino mix skin."

Elders southern livestock sales manager Laryn Gogel - who was the auctioneer - said the offering were a very good run of structurally correct rams with good fleshing.

He said Ultrawhites had a "real heartbeat", filling the role of both maternals and terminals.

"They are extremely good mothers and then you turn around on the other end you have a hell of a prime lamb," he said.

"For the amount of rams we sold and the enormous pre-sale enquiry I think we can say the sale was a success."