WONGAN Hills-based producer Stewart Oliver is lucky on two fronts this year.
He’s been lucky to see just enough rain at just the right time fall on his property to have the crops out of the ground, and he’s lucky his white tag lambs like the taste of hay.
Sheep make up somewhere between 10-15 per cent of the Oliver family operation just east of Wongan Hills and this year the 800 breeding ewes have been on feed for months.
The feeding regime hasn’t seemed to bother them though, with some solid looking lambs running around at eight weeks old when Farm Weekly visited last week.
“We haven’t had much rain and the pastures have suffered but we’re very grateful for what we’ve got,” Stewart said.
“The crops are out of the ground and looking OK so we’re better off than most.
“We’ve been feeding hay, pellets and lupins for months now and the sheep have held their condition pretty well even post lambing so we really can’t complain too much.”
It’s a love and hate relationship with sheep for Stewart, but he says they are worth the effort.
“We’ve had Merinos forever and we’ve talked about getting rid of them forever but for some reason we’ve always just held onto them,” he said.
“It’s been a long time coming through the years when prices were terrible, but now it’s nice to see a good chunk of income coming from them.”
And the Olivers haven’t been afraid of tailoring their Merinos to suit their operation, going to a composite ram from BreedersBEST years ago to inject some extra fertility into their flock.
“It was about 10 years ago we got that composite in and it’s made a world of difference for us,” Stewart said.
“I don’t want to bag out the Merinos – they’re fantastic and we’ve since only been buying in Merino rams, but we found we needed a lift in mothering and fertility which is what the BreedersBEST blood did.”
Stewart said the flock now had only about a quarter of the composite breed blood remaining but he still saw a difference.
“The composite improved our sheep tenfold,” he said.
“And now, since we’ve been breeding the Merino back into them, I think we still continue to benefit from the cross while getting the quality of wool from the Merino.
“Particularly the percentages and quality of lambs on the ground – we notice they’re stronger and more energetic than the sorts of lambs we were producing before the cross was added.”
Stewart said another benefit of the composite blood injection was the plainer carcase which they’ve continued to focus on with their new sires.
“When selecting our Merino rams one of our biggest focuses is the plainness of body type in an effort to prevent issues with flies,” he said.
“And the real plain body type of the composite was obviously a big plus.
“We’ve been favouring rams from our neighbour Daybron Farms, Mocardy Poll Merino stud, because their sheep have that straight quality about them which has continued to improve our flock.
“David Millsteed was a relatively new breeder when we started buying rams from him but we really like the style of his sheep.
“We also buy from Northwich and Dabrappy studs and all up we’d buy in between four to six rams each year based on size and wool style.
“I believe in putting the effort into selecting quality and paying what you need to for a ram as well, because at the end of the day it’s only a few hundred dollars which then goes on to influence your entire flock.
“I definitely look at my rams as investments.”
Stewart is now fairly happy with how his sheep are looking.
“Working on that plainer body type has really paid off because the issues with flies are much less than they were,” he said.
“We still have to mules and crutch, but between that and the plain bodies we’ve focused on, we’re where we want to be.”
The wool is performing well too.
“We’re sitting in the middle ground for micron and that’s where I like to be,” Stewart said.
“It’s around the 21 micron mark and we cut about 40 bales each year, which is a nice little income on the side of cropping because at the end of the day, the sheep are really on the property to work as a tool for the cropping operation which is the main money earner.
“Weed control is obviously important for the cropping and the sheep are able to get into the tighter places we can’t reach with the machinery.”
Stewart said he didn’t know what he’d do if he was total cropping.
“We do enough spraying as it is,” he said.
“Often we do have to go in after the sheep have gone over a paddock but they do play a role in keeping things under control which is why we keep holding onto them.”
Looking to the future, Stewart will have to start making decisions about investing in the livestock infrastructure on the property.
“We’re at the stage where we will need to do some upgrading of the yards and sheds,” Stewart said.
“There is room in our stocking rate to up our sheep numbers without too much additional work and I have been thinking about that fairly seriously, but we’d need to spend a bit of money on other things as well.
“For now I think it’ll be business as usual.
“I am leaning towards increasing numbers, especially while values are there but we’ll have to work out how it’ll work in terms of time management, farming is a busy business these days.”
