WELLSTEAD prime lamb producers Malcolm, Marie and Jordan Fenwick have notched up their third WAMMCO Producer of the Month title, taking out the September 2010 award with a mix of 4-5 month-old Prime SAMM-East Friesian-White Dorper lambs that averaged $124.85 per head.
The 112 lambs in a draft of White Dorper-East Friesian lambs weighed an average of 23.89kg and scored $5.23/kg on WAMMCO's daily schedule.
WAMMCO Select added $6.10 a head on 33 of the carcases, representing an extra yield of 8.4c/kg, or $2.02 per head over the delivery.
A total of 28 lambs in the consignment averaged $129.87 a head with several heavier individuals topping $150 a head.
Also in the consignment was a line of 70 East Friesian-Prime SAMM lambs that averaged 23.72kg and were priced at $5.33c/kg to return $131.53 a head and also attracted a WAMMCO Select payment of $255.79 over 58.6 per cent of these lambs.
Malcolm said the lambs were from his first March/April lambing and half of the draft was sired for the first time by White Dorper rams over Prime SAMM-East Friesian ewes.
His classer, Ray Norman of Elders Albany said the achievement of nearly $125 a head for lambs of five months or less was outstanding.
Malcolm encouraged his late father Bill to try Dohnes and some of Keith Embry's East Friesian rams over some Merino ewes several years ago, rather than abandoning sheep altogether.
"I'm very pleased that we made that decision and also went on to trial Prime SAMMs with the East Friesians and the White Dorpers last year for the first time," he said.
"The extra lambing was introduced because I could see opportunities to increase our lambing percentage and to capitalise on WAMMCO's higher prices in that August/September period.
"A further bonus was that the rains came at the right time, even though they were much lighter than we would have liked."
Malcolm said with harvest prospects on the Wellstead properties remaining uncertain, he was planning to keep more ewes for next year's mating.
