THE Button family, Manunda Poll Merino stud, Tammin, established a new record sale price for the stud recently when it sold a young Poll Merino sire privately for $30,000.
The upstanding ram, which is still carrying its lamb’s teeth, attracted plenty of attention at last Friday’s Narrogin Long Wool Day, where it was on display.
At the start of the day the Buttons had no intention of selling the young ram but as interest grew, their thoughts changed and by day’s end the ram was headed to a new home at the Patterson family’s Woolkabin stud, Woodanilling.
Manunda stud principal Wayne Button said they intended to put the ram aside to be a stud reserve at Manunda as they thought extremely high of it, but after strong interest on Friday that all changed.
“I think he is as good as any ram we have ever bred in the stud, so our initial thoughts were to keep him and we were very reluctant to put him up for sale,” Mr Button said.
“But then there was interest in him, so we decided to put a price on him and the Pattersons accepted it.”
The June 2017-drop, ET-bred ram is by Victorian sire Banavie 333, which was purchased by the Manunda stud in 2015 for $60,000 and was out of an ET-bred Manunda ewe, which is a daughter of popular WA AI sire Coromandel 2.
The ram has wool figures of 18.4 micron, 2.8 SD, 15.2 CV and 100 per cent comfort factor.
The private sale was negotiated between Mr Button and buyers Chris and Eric Patterson with the assistance of Elders stud stock representatives Nathan King and Kevin Broad.
Chris Patterson said it was the young ram’s wool “that sold it”.
“It’s a well grown young sheep, still with its lamb’s teeth, with pearly white wool,” Chris said.
“He stands good on his feet with wool right down to his toes and is perfect poll with a beautiful soft muzzle.
“A young ram with its bone and scale and that wool is very rarely found.”
Chris said Banavie 333 genetics had been performing well in WA and they were keen to try some in their stud.
He said it was a good time to be investing in the sheep industry.
“Commercial sheep and wool industries are going well and the rain on the roof and strong grain prices, gives us the confidence to invest back into our stud and continue pushing the breeding along.”