Top Carcuma North Poll Merino ram bound for stud duties near Keith
A fellow Poll Merino stud pushed Carcuma North's annual on-property ram sale to $4600 near Peake last Wednesday, though demand didn't quite meet up to supply as the sale went on.
Matt Fiebig, Hilton Heath, Keith, was the volume buyer of the Johnson family's White Suffolk ram offering, and couldn't resist Lot 4 in the Poll Merino lineup.
Bound for stud duties, the ram with Collinsville Imperial bloodlines carried a 19.3 micron fleece, with 3.3 standard deviation, 17.2 coefficient of variation, and 99.7 per cent comfort factor.
Mr Fiebig bought seven White Suffolk rams, all at $1300. He said it was a continuation of a good relationship with Carcuma North.
"We've done quite a bit of ram buying and exchanging with Grant and Carolyn. Their sheep seem to cross really well with ours and are commercially reliable, have a lot of longevity and are very sound," Mr Fiebig said.
"We've been joining all of our commercial ewes to Grant and Carolyn's White Suffolks for six or seven years now.
"I'm getting amazing results. Even last year and the year before in a really poor season they performed exceptionally well."
The majority of the Fiebig's lambs are sold over the hooks, with lighter types occasionally sold as stores to buyers further south to be put on lucerne.
"The top ones we're getting to dress at 23 to 24 kilograms at five to six months of age straight off mum," he said.
The Poll Merino sale also hit $3800 for a ram bought by Nathan Docking, through Elders Murray Bridge, and $3000 for one bought by Lock Haven, Mundulla, but the clearance was a struggle, with 13 of 46 rams sold to a $1600 average.
Lock Haven was the volume buyer, finishing with four rams to a $1700 average.
The earliest offering of White Suffolk rams in SA, 13 of the 30 offered were sold, averaging $1053.
Mr Johnson said low ewe numbers, and a couple of clients exiting farming, as a factor in the sale's clearance but was reasonably happy with the White Suffolk result, expecting those to be privately sold prior to other White Suffolk sales kicking off in six weeks time.
"We knew that we were going to struggle for a full clearance given the way the drought has affected the local area," Mr Johnson said.
"We knew it would be a bit tough in the Merino side of things, but it's a bit of a reflection of ewe numbers."
Mr Johnson said it was still encouraging to have the support of stud breeders like Mr Fiebig and leading commercial producers like Lock Haven.
