AMONG the fervor during the East Mundalla on-property ram sale at Tarin Rock last week, where a record price of $57,000 was paid for a Poll Merino ram and another sold at $20,000, the stud also negotiated the sale of another Poll Merino sire privately for $30,000.
The Gooding family had orginally earmarked the ram to stay at East Mundalla as a future stud sire.
However after receiving an offer they couldn't ignore from the Pickering famiy's Pyramid Poll stud, Cascade, they decided to sell the ram to the Pickerings.
A $5000 semen share in the ram was sold to Paul Hendy, Bellbourie stud, Stawell, Victoria, as part of the deal negotiated by Landmark through Brindley and Gale Esperance agent Peter Gale and Landmark Breeding representative Mitchell Crosby.
Pyramid Poll stud principal Scott Pickering said after they were losing bidders on East Mundalla's $23,000 top-priced Poll ram at the Rabobank WA Sheep Expo & Sale at Katanning, he went back and looked at the East Mundalla's pen of stud reserves they had on display with classer Paul Cousins and they were both impressed by this ram.
"We are asked the Goodings if they were interested in selling him but at that stage they weren't, so we thought we'd go up to their sale and see what else they had," Mr Pickering said.
"In the end I decided this was the ram we really wanted so we presented them with an offer and we are grateful they accepted it.
"We really thank them for accepting the offer and letting us buy the ram."
The ET-bred ram is by Collinsville Imperial 141 and out of Glenlea Park 739.
The June 2015-drop ram cut nine kilograms of wool when blade shorn at seven months and had August wool figures of 22.5 micron, 3.2 SD, 14.3 CV and 99.3 per cent comfort factor.
It weighed in at 119kg and had an eye muscle depth of 42mm.
At the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo, Victoria, in July, it was sashed reserve champion strong wool Poll Merino ram of the show and champion strong wool March shorn Poll Merino ram.
Mr Pickering said the ram was an outstanding sire with both an impressive structure and wool quality.
"He has a really good frame and size about him and on the wool side he carries a white, bold-crimping, well-nourished wool," he said.
"He will be a new bloodline for us and he is the type of ram with his frame and wool quality we have been looking for.
"We already have a plan of how we are going to use him in the stud, we will look at using him over some plainer Gunallo blood ewe.
"We will use him in AI program over 400 ewes and then pick out about 130 ewes to paddock mate him to."