THE unseasonal conditions, including a lack of rain throughout many areas where regular Tiarri Prime SAMM clients are based, had an impact on the final results of last week’s ninth Tiarri on-property ram sale at Lake Grace.
However despite a reduction in buying interest due to the season, come the end of the auction, Tiarri principals Ross and Pauline Taylor and their daughter Kelly-Anne Gooch were pleased with the result and the support from their widespread client base.
In the sale conducted by Elders with Landmark in conjunction, 179 rams were offered by Elders auctioneer Nathan King and after close on two hours of selling, 137 rams had been sold at auction for an average of $1212.
This was the second year such a number of rams have been offered, after Tiarri boosted its numbers early last year with the purchase of the Uralla stud and again this year each ram was offered bearing it’s Tiarri or Uralla prefix to identify background breeding to clients.
Another pleasing aspect of the sale for the principals was a record price for the stud of $4000, set when lot 100 was offered.
Carrying the Uralla prefix and a July 2017-drop ram, it was one of the heavier rams in the shed weighing 123 kilograms as at August 20 with scan figures of 47 millimetres eye muscle depth (EMD) and 5.1mm fat.
These carcase figures combined with its July 18 wool test figures of 22.8 micron and 97.7 per cent comfort factor (CF), meant it caught the eye of a number of buyers before being knocked down at $4000 to Jefferies Brothers, Woodanilling.
Speaking on behalf of the Jefferies family after the sale, Neil Jefferies, a man of few words, said they had bought a sire from Tiarri before for use in their own nucleus flock to breed a few rams for their own commercial flock.
The losing bidder on the top ram was Trevor Major, Muntadgin, who also pushed a number of other buyers to some of the other higher prices on the day including Chris Walker, IF & KM Walker, Ravensthorpe, who paid the second and third top prices on the day of $3100 and $2800 for two of the four rams he purchased.
Mr Major, accompanied by his wife, made two buyer registrations, one on his own behalf the other on behalf of his son with whom he also farms and all up ended up going home with three rams up to $2300.
Third top price on the day was $2700 paid for one of 10 rams bought by another regular client, Matt Lloyd, Tim Lloyd & Co, Newdegate and Colin Joyce, CD & VK Joyce, Kukerin, was back again this year going home with 11 rams up to $2100 twice.
Tom and Donna Lynch, Hyden, paid up to $2600 and $2400 for two of the overall eight they bought.
Other volume buyers included IB & J Orr, Newdegate, who purchased 11 head and Landmark Lake Grace’s Gary Prater bought nine on behalf of Rodenway Trust, Moorine Rock, and three other clients each went home with seven rams each including the former owners of the Uralla stud, Peter Jensen and family who continue to run a commercial Prime SAMM flock.
Perhaps an extreme to this sale is in one sense the location of two clients.
From Geraldton, Dick Cobley, R & R Cobley & Son, was operating for the fourth year and from way down at Esperance, JA Russell Australia Pty Ltd through farm manager Nick Ruddenclau was back again this year.
The Cobley family has attended and bought Tiarri rams for the past three years and bought the top-priced Tiarri rams for the past two years, however this year their bidding was done by phone and the ram selected went to them at $2500.
Nick Ruddenclau, accompanied by Landmark Esperance agent Neil Brindley, was again the volume buyer going home at the conclusion of the sale having purchased 19 rams up to $1300.
Commenting after the sale, Elders auctioneer Nathan King said it was yet again a very good line-up of Prime SAMM rams presented in ideal condition and clients could see what they had to bid on backed by the test figures in the catalogue.
Comparing this year’s results with those of last year and speaking with some of the clients after the sale, it was obvious the very late start to the season and therefore lack of available feed brought about for some the culling of older ewes resulting in less rams being required this year.
Speaking on behalf of the Taylor family, Kelly-Anne Gooch said that they were very pleased with the support from their clients and that how the rams had come up considering the season which has resulted in very few lambs from out east having yet been sold and also saying that clients were forced to sell older ewes.