Daring to be different

It might not have been a radical change, but at the time it was a significant leap forward for a young Owen Dare and his Merino flock.

It was the 1970s and science had started to seep into the sheep industry, with more breeders beginning to recognise the significance of measuring performance.

Things such as growth rates and wool traits were filtering down to commercial producers such as Owen and Liz Dare, who immediately caught on to the potential benefits to their flock.

"Back in those days measurement wasn't really done in the stud industry," Owen said.

"You had to rely on visual assessment of a ram and it wasn't all that accurate.

"Then you had the Australian Merino Society (AMS) starting to measure sheep with a consistent formula, allowing them to compare one animal to the next.

"I could see the huge benefit in using those measurements, so we became members and involved with the AMS group breeding scheme."

Becoming a member meant the top one per cent of their breeding ewes were contributed to the AMS breeding nucleus, with the reciprocal benefit of receiving the progeny as rams to use over their commercial flock.

Over the years it has been a reliable tool to help guide Owen and Liz, who now farm together with their son Jamie and his wife Louisa and their children Matthew and Haley, who have inherited a well-measured and refined Merino flock of 5000 head.

But the sheep remain primarily Owen's domain and it's easy to see why, as one need only a few moments of talking farming with him to realise how deep his passion and knowledge of sheep really runs.

Every aspect of their farming operation has been given careful consideration, such as recently deciding to move from a fine-woolled flock around the 16-micron mark toward a more central clip of 20 micron.

It was a goal they were still building towards, with many of their sheep producing wool at 18.5 micron after this year's main January shearing.

"We've been measuring every sheep on this farm, except wethers up until a few years ago," Owen said.

"We wanted to know where our breeding was headed and what we needed to adjust.

"Most of the time at least 10pc didn't even make it to the measuring table purely after a visual cull."

The hard work in the early days has brought the Dares to their flock of 2900 Merino ewes, 2340 of which were mated to Merino rams and a couple of mobs of 560 older Merino ewes were mated to Prime SAMMs.

Both Owen and Jamie believed the general trend over the past decade has been focussed on meat traits rather than wool, so they decided to bring the Prime SAMM first cross lamb into their operation.

But they had always measured meat traits in their Merinos too, so they were still well-positioned with rearing a dual-purpose sheep that grew soft, bright wool and had favourable carcase traits.

They were quite bold with culling undesirable traits such as excessive wrinkle, small size, dull wool colour and correct conformation.

The ewe hoggets in particular were cut down by 30pc each year solely from a visual cull by both Owen and Jamie, ensuring only the best breeding ewes remained to be joined in January for five weeks at 2pc.

The ewes and rams were flushed with lupins before mating to ensure they were in peak condition for conception, with the result being between 95 to 110pc lambing in June and July in the past few years.

A higher lambing percentage was due to a number of factors, including pregnancy testing and solid starts to the past few seasons that ensured lambs dropped onto green feed once seeding had finished.

It was a particularly important strategy as Owen and Jamie avoided moving ewes before and during lambing.

Since they finished measuring a few years ago to simplify their production, the Dares started pregnancy testing all the ewes to remove the unproductive dries.

It also helped identify ewes pregnant with twins or triplets, allowing them to separate them from the singles and put them into paddocks with lick feeders full of barley.

"I've found the secret to lamb survival is to run small mobs, especially with Merinos and those pregnant with twins," Owen said.

"I have been running them in mobs of 200 or less and they seem to do better."

Once the lambs are about 12-weeks-old they are weaned in October and usually sold on-farm as they reach specification.

When the F1 Prime SAMM-Merino lambs have become hefty enough to dress out at 20kg or more, they were sold in drafts to an abattoir, while the Merinos were sold as 1.5yo wether hoggets to exporters.

The Dares preferred to sell direct as it was more efficient and the price was usually comparable to those lambs sold under auction.

"I find selling our sheep straight off the farm saves double handling," Owen said.

"We know exactly what we're getting before we load them onto a truck and don't have to worry if they will be sent back to us.

"And the way prices are at the moment, having some well-bred sheep on hand is a pretty good position to be in."