YARRAM Park will offer 280 well-grown maternal and Southie terminal rams at its seventh annual sale to be held at Hamilton Showgrounds on October 15.
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The stud is run under strictly commercial conditions by Antony Baillieu and Jeremy Upton with no supplementary feeding or shedding.
"We aim to produce sound well-structured rams with excellent constitution and doing ability," Antony said. "High fertility of both ewes and rams is of paramount importance and we select heavily in regard to these traits."
All sheep are fully Lamb Plan recorded, with all data represented in the sale catalogue.
All sale rams are run and managed from weaning to sale day in large contemporary groups of over 250 head, to challenge constitution, structure and performance.
Sire lines are not only progeny tested annually throughout the large commercial flock, but are also fertility tested in big commercial joining groups under realistic and extensive conditions.
The formation of the 1400-strong breeding flock originated after Mt Elephant was approached to carry some of the very first embryo work to come to Australia from New Zealand.
This formed the basis of the stud, to which a number of breeds have been infused successfully to establish the current Perendale and Southdown composite flock.
When Mt Elephant Station was sold in 2010, the stud ewes were relocated to Yarram Park.
Following the increasing demand in 2014 for Southie terminal rams, the high performance Point Vale Southdown stud was purchased in 2015.
This enabled fast-track of the terminal breeding expansion, with an additional 350 breeding ewes coming into the program.
"We are now confident we sit in a very strong position to supply larger lines of high performance Southdown composites to the market place as terminal sires," Antony said.
"We had a rewarding sale season in 2018, marketing nearly 400 rams to existing and new clients in Victoria, South Australia, NSW, and Tasmania.
"Feedback from several clients highlighted the excellent fertility in both our maternal and terminal ram program, with several flocks scanning up to 180 per cent to ewes joined."
The 2019 sale rams have come through a challenging summer and a long dry autumn period, but have developed and grown out well.
"With a large genetic pool to draw from our big stud ewe base, we are able to carefully select and manage a sale team that is a very even line of sound, fertile and well grown rams ready to work," Antony said.
Pre-sale inspection is from 9.30am with the sale at 11.30am.
Yarram Park can also provide a classing and advisory service to any clients looking for assistance with their breeding program, as well as free transport to property for rams purchased at the annual production sale.