Woolumbool Poll Dorsets

Breeding Aims

Initially founded in 1975 to breed rams for personal use, we selected the Poll Dorset breed as it was the ‘prime lamb’ breed of the time.

Breeding rams for this purpose we knew high numbers of rams were needed and we steadily increased the breeding ewe’s base flock to over 300.

We also discovered very quickly breeding quality sheep using visual assessment alone was extraordinarily inefficient system for improvement.

Woolumbool Studs were an early adopter of data-based breeding using as many measurements as possible to deliver the best results.

We keep our breeding simple and focus on genetics and phenotype, consistently introducing sires of superior genetics from various other studs to keep on improving.

Our focus is to breed sheep that the industry wants and what our clients are looking for. We take pride in breeding for performance whilst maintaining breed type.

Breeding sheep with ease of lambing, superior growth, moderate fat, good meat-eating qualities and highly resistant to intestinal worms are our key performance metrics.

We continually aim to improve and stay abreast with current trends within the prime lamb industry breeding Poll Dorset genetics for profit.

Woolumbool Studs have been breeding high performance rams for the Prime lamb Industry, north of Lucindale in SA’s South East since 1975.

Objective measurement has been the priority tool in use at Woolumbool since its introduction in the early 1980’s and remains so to the present, which along with sensible use of visual traits ensures we are breeding rams which sire lambs that are efficient at production.

We aim to produce rams which have lower birth weights with high growth and exceptional muscling which gives our rams the ability to produce viable fast growing and easy finishing lambs.

Our rams are pasture based and receive very little in the way of supplementary feeding which we believe gives them an edge later in life when winter pastures are short and lacking.

Woolumbool rams are generally considerably younger at sale than many other rams due to being born late winter and during spring and therefore not overweight and they are very fit and active at the time of our ram sale as a result.

Many of our clients are very focused on breeding values and very interested in purchasing sires which fit their own breeding objectives and we take great pleasure in being able to present rams which fit their requirements.

Woolumbool Studs has always followed the latest research in breeding for future requirements and have supplied lambs for eating quality evaluations as well as some sires for use in the MLA reference flocks.

Following Sheep Genetics advice, we have DNA tested 20% of the current sale rams to obtain more accurate eating quality breeding values.

The 2021 drop of Poll Dorset and White Suffolk lambs have a high proportion of them in the top 5% of animals based on the LEQ Index.

The sires in use for the 2022 drop of lambs have the majority of them in the top 1%of animals based on the LEQ Index.