FOLLOWING a visit to the recent Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo, Victoria, a group of Merino sheep breeders from Argentina travelled to WA to inspect a number of Merino studs.
The group, led by recently retired World Federation of Merino Breeders president Glen Keamy, spent much of last week visiting a number of prominent WA studs before returning home to their properties in the Chubut Province of Patogonia in Southern Argentina.
And they didn't go home empty handed.
The group purchased three rams as well as a number of straws of semen from the different studs they visited.
Their purchases included two rams from the Sprigg family's East Strathglen stud, Tambellup and one ram from the Dewar family's Woodyarrup stud, Broomehill.
At East Strathglen the group purchased a 13-month-old Merino ram and a 15-month-old Poll sire, which were both grandsons of East Strathglen Princess, while at Woodyarrup they secured a 2010-drop Poll sire, which still had its lamb teeth.
The group included the principal of Estancia Arroyo Verde, Senor Roberto Polito who was accompanied by his brother Caesar and his property manager Senor Manuel Camus who was last in WA in 2006 for the World Merino Conference where he inspected many of the Merino sheep on display at Katanning.
Another member of the group was Senor Jorge Scott who manages the Estancia San Jose property.
Senor Scott has a long association with Australia going back to the 1970s when he was a jackaroo on the Haddon Rig property, Emu Springs, Tintinara, South Australia.
Senor Scott was also among the group from Argentina who attended the World Merino Conference in 2006.
The fifth member of this year's touring group was Senor Carlos Neira who has a Merino stud of 150 stud pedigreed ewes and classes for many large commercial and stud properties including Senor Roberto Polito's Arroyo Verde flock of 18,000 head of which there are 10,000 ewes with 50 per cent of Merino and Poll Merino.
Included in the ewe flock are some 300 head of pedigreed stud ewes and about 600 rams a year from the stud flock and from top commercial ewes are sold annually.
Semen from a number of top studs in WA has been used in the Arroyo Verde flock over the years with the last ram physically purchased for use in the flock back in 1994.
Along with the Merino flock, property manager Senor Manuel Camus is also responsible for the 300 head of pure Hereford breeders.
The San Jose Merino flock for which Senor Jorge Scott is responsible consists of 10,000 Merinos of which 5000 are ewes.
A pedigreed stud flock has just been registered and currently around 300 commercial rams are sold annually.
Again, semen from WA studs has been used in the San Jose flock including that of Cardo Empire 15.4 and more recently Angenup Franklin, with both of these sires used in embryo transfer work.
As well as visiting a number of individual studs the group also again saw a number of rams which had been shown at Bendigo including the supreme champion Merino sheep of the show, East Mundalla Jonty currently housed in Ashley Lock's preparation shed and the Olinda Poll Merino ram which was sashed grand champion medium wool ram of the show, which was at Roy and Coral Mahony's preparation shed.
